Eight out of 20 semiconductor chips designed by students: Ashwini Vaishnaw

The country’s six-decade aspiration to produce commercial-scale chips has finally come to fruition this year. Six semiconductor units are under construction, with major design and talent development efforts under way. Eight out of 20 semiconductor chips designed by students — many from IIT Hyderabad — have already been successfully taped out (completion of design phase), Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday.

Addressing graduating students at the 14th convocation of Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Sangareddy, on Saturday, he spoke about advancements under the IndianAI Mission, telecom self-reliance — developing own 4G stack that is upgradable to 5G in three-and-a-half years, railway modernisation and indigenous innovation, particularly automatic train protection system Kavach, developed in Hyderabad and being implemented across the rail network.

“Today’s graduates are entering a world of great uncertainty, but also immense opportunity, supported by a strong foundation built over the past decade,” he said, stressing the country’s technological transformation such as in electronics manufacturing and India Semiconductor Mission.

Mr. Vaishnaw invoked the country’s economic leadership before colonial rule and called upon today’s youth to lead the country back to being among the top two global economies by 2047.

A total of 1,273 degrees, including 460 B.Tech, 511M.Tech, 134 PhD and other courses, were awarded at the ceremony. Rahul Ramachandran of the Department of Computer Science won the President of India Gold Medal. Institute’s gold medals were presented to Harmanpreet Singh, Ajith BS and Rishitha Mudunuri.

Director, IITH, BS Murty presented the institute’s report. He said the ceremony marks the graduation of the first cohorts of several new interdisciplinary programmes, including B.Tech in Biotechnology & Bioinformatics, Computational Engineering, and Industrial Chemistry; M.Tech in Quantum & Solid-State Devices and Sustainable Engineering; MSc in Medical Physics; and the first PhD in Artificial Intelligence.

IITH was granted the ‘Institute of National Eminence’ status and recorded the highest-ever annual R&D funding in 2024–25, he informed.