Qualcomm is already designing chips in India because it faucets on the nation’s pool of gifted engineers, Qualcomm India’s president mentioned in an unique interview.

“We have already got chips which can be really designed utterly finish to finish in India and we’re transport these globally,” Savi Soin, president of Qualcomm India, advised CNBC.

The American chip big designs semiconductors and wi-fi telecommunications merchandise. Qualcomm is greatest identified for its Snapdragon processors which energy among the high Android smartphones internationally.

Like several chip designer, Qualcomm would not manufacture its personal chips. As a substitute, it depends on chip producers equivalent to TSMC, Samsung Electronics and GlobalFoundries.

“We’ve got extra engineers in India now than we’ve anyplace else within the globe,” mentioned Soin. “We’ve got loads of engineers right here doing end-to-end chip design.”

The chip design course of is “extremely advanced” because it requires “years of R&D, a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} of funding, and hundreds of engineers,” mentioned Semiconductor Business Affiliation in a report.

An integral a part of the semiconductor manufacturing course of, chip design defines the necessities for the chip’s structure and system, in addition to how particular person circuits will probably be laid out on the chip.

Qualcomm in January mentioned it’s increasing its Chennai operations with a brand new design middle specializing in wi-fi expertise.

The 1.77 billion rupee ($21.3 million) funding can even assist Qualcomm’s dedication to the Indian authorities’s imaginative and prescient of “Make in India” and “Design in India.”

“We noticed India 20 years in the past as an ideal R&D middle of excellence and an ideal pool of expertise. We’re seeing India as an ideal market, as [a] nice alternative,” Soin advised CNBC’s Sri Jegarajah.

“We at the moment are in dialogue with loads of semiconductor back-ends in addition to manufacturing that India is attempting to arrange. Our CEO dedicated two years in the past that if India units up semiconductor manufacturing, we are going to really assist deliver quantity to that,” mentioned Soin.

India’s semiconductor ambitions have made enormous strides with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities approving three semiconductor vegetation in Gujarat and Assam with investments of greater than $15 billion.

“India already has deep capabilities in chip design. With these models, our nation will develop capabilities in chip fabrication. Superior packaging applied sciences will probably be indigenously developed in India,” in accordance with a authorities assertion on Feb. 29.

India desires to grow to be a serious chip hub to compete in opposition to the U.S., Taiwan and South Korea, and has been wooing international chip makers to arrange operations within the nation. Nations equivalent to India stands to learn as world chipmakers look to diversify operations amid geopolitical uncertainty.

To spice up home manufacturing capabilities and exports, India has introduced billions of {dollars} value of production-linked incentives to “appeal to funding” in key areas and cutting-edge expertise in addition to to make India “an integral a part of the worldwide worth chain.”

India goals to be one of many high 5 semiconductor producers globally within the subsequent 5 years, Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister of electronics and knowledge expertise, railways and communications, advised CNBC in March.

“What we’ve seen is – for instance, the PLI advantages – it actually has introduced manufacturing of increasingly smartphones into India,” mentioned Soin.

“So we’ve seen good incentives on IT, telecom and telecom tools that is manufacturing right here. We’re seeing some discussions across the design components. So we’re hoping that increasingly issues, some components of our merchandise that use our expertise, get designed in India,” mentioned Soin.

Apple is among the firms that has diversified a few of its manufacturing operations to India amid U.S.-China geopolitical tensions. Apple now assembles about 14% of its iPhones in India, which is twice the quantity it produced there final 12 months, in accordance with a Bloomberg report.

Google plans to start manufacturing of its Pixel smartphones in India by second quarter, Nikkei Asia reported February.