New Delhi, Sept. 17 -- At SEMICON India 2026 on Thursday, Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Semicon 2.0 would target at least 200 startups and companies designing chips in India, while the programme would train more than 1 lakh technicians over five years, including cleanroom and factory-floor workers. He also said the government was seeing semiconductor investment interest of around Rs 1 lakh crore, or $11-12 billion, based on discussions with companies.

The investment interest spans semiconductor equipment, materials, gases, chemicals, advanced packaging and other parts of the supply chain. Vaishnaw said some companies were still awaiting board or shareholder approvals before publicly announcin...