India now accounts for around 20 per cent of the global chip design and VLSI workforce, with more than 85,000 semiconductor skill sets generated in the country over the past four years, according to a senior Intel executive.
Speaking at SEMICON India 2026, *Iyengar*, senior vice president, Fellow and general manager, Central Engineering Group, Intel, said India’s semiconductor talent pool is expanding alongside the growth of the domestic semiconductor ecosystem.
More than 355 universities in India are offering advanced courses in semiconductors and VLSI design and testing, while universities have been producing more than 250 chips as part of efforts to strengthen local chip-design capabilities, according to Iyengar.
The expanding academic pipeline is also being supported by the growth of semiconductor engineering talent. The more than 85,000 skill sets generated in the last four years point to increasing availability of specialised talent as semiconductor manufacturing and design activity expands in India.
The demand for such skills is expected to grow further with the increasing use of artificial intelligence, including agentic AI, which is driving demand for greater chip-design and computing capabilities.
India’s growing AI talent pool and start-up ecosystem are also contributing to the country’s deep-tech workforce. Intel has operations across several of its business areas in India, including client and edge computing, data centres, networking and AI.
The semiconductor talent ecosystem is also seeing greater participation from startups, with Indian companies increasingly working on deep-tech and chip-design capabilities.
For the industry, the expansion of university programmes and specialised engineering skills will be an important component of building the talent pipeline required as India seeks to increase its role in the global semiconductor value chain.
