PM Modi Chairs Semiconductor Roundtable With Global Chip CEOs Ahead of SEMICON India 2026

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sat down with chief executives and senior representatives from some of the world's largest semiconductor companies in New Delhi on Wednesday, a day ahead of the formal opening of SEMICON India 2026, in a roundtable aimed at deepening industry engagement with the country's fast-expanding chip ecosystem.

Who Was in the Room

The closed-door session, held at Seva Teerth, brought together leadership from organisations including SEMI, Micron, Infineon, Applied Materials, ASML, Merck, Tokyo Electron, Fujifilm, AMD and Intel, according to details shared after the meeting. The presence of executives from across the semiconductor value chain, spanning equipment makers, materials suppliers and chip designers, reflects how broadly India's push into this sector has expanded beyond simply courting fabrication plants.

During the discussion, Modi reportedly emphasised the importance of close collaboration between government and industry in shaping the next phase of India's technology ambitions, pointing to the country's talent base, growing technology adoption and improving infrastructure as foundations to build on. He specifically called on the assembled executives to deepen their involvement in skilling programmes, innovation partnerships and emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, areas where India has been trying to position itself as more than just a low-cost manufacturing destination.

Setting the Stage for SEMICON India

The roundtable serves as a prelude to SEMICON India 2026, the fifth edition of the flagship industry event, which formally opens on Thursday at Yashobhoomi in Delhi and runs through September 19. This year's edition is expected to be the largest yet, with organisers projecting more than 600 exhibitors, including roughly 300 international companies, spread across 15,000 square metres of exhibition space, alongside more than 150 speakers addressing policy, technology and investment themes over the three-day event.

The scale of this year's gathering is being read by industry watchers as a signal of how far India's semiconductor ambitions have progressed since the government first rolled out its production-linked incentive schemes and fabrication-plant approvals a few years ago. What began largely as a policy and incentives story is increasingly being framed, including by officials themselves, as a shift toward actual production capacity coming online.

Why the Timing Matters

Wednesday's roundtable also carries symbolic weight: Modi is scheduled to formally inaugurate SEMICON India 2026 on Thursday, which happens to fall on his birthday, adding a degree of political significance to an event that is already central to the government's broader "Make in India" and technology self-reliance narrative.

For the global chipmakers in attendance, the calculus is somewhat different. Companies like Micron, AMD, Intel and ASML have all made varying degrees of commitment to India in recent years, ranging from assembly and testing facilities to R&D centres, and sessions like Wednesday's roundtable function as a venue for both reinforcing existing investments and signalling openness to further expansion, particularly as global supply chains continue to diversify away from concentrated manufacturing hubs. Whether Wednesday's discussions translate into fresh investment announcements is likely to become clearer once SEMICON India 2026 itself gets underway on Thursday.

This is an original summary based on public reporting. See our editorial policy for how we source, write, and correct our stories.