Odia engineers abroad laud India’s first foray into chip development | Bhubaneswar News

Bhubaneswar: Engineers living abroad lauded the efforts of National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (NIT-R), and Parala Maharaj Engineering College, Berhampur, for developing three chips that became part of the first ‘Made in India’ semi-conductor batch presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Semicon India-2025 in New Delhi.“This is a major achievement, and I am proud it has come from the institute where I studied,” said Ranjan Rout, an NIT-R alumni and the principal engineer, Abbott Laboratories, Texas. But he said US and China are way ahead of India in designing chips while Taiwan leads the world in fabrication.The NROs felt Odisha needed to take strong steps to catch up. “More people should be encouraged to design chips,” said Dallas-based Tapan Padhi, CEO of SkyEyez, an AI-powered surveillance platform and an NIT-R alumni.“Odisha govt should establish a strong infrastructure for chip manufacturing by providing land, 24×7 power and water supplies, raw materials and establishing a strong supply chain. All these will require huge investments before benefits can be reaped in 5-6 years,” he said.Most importantly, Odisha should enter strategic partnerships with Odias working in this field abroad. “Invite Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese and US semi-conductor firms to Odisha,” said Sanjay Dalai, IT delivery manager in Wipro technologies, Toronto, an alumni of IGIT, Sarang.“Chip industry will also bring many Odia engineers working in Bangalore, Hyderabad, US and Taiwan in chip design to Odisha,” Dalai added.This apart, it will generate employment, ancillary industries in turn boosting Odisha’s economy. “India has the manpower, passion, knowledge and govt initiative to design chips. And it is the way to go as chips are required to store data. With AI being in vogue, more chips will be required to save trillions of data,” said Padhi.