Manickam: Indian chip startups must conquer local market before going global
Raja Manickam · WHAT Will Decide The Next Superpower? | Raja Manickam | iVP Semiconductor · Jun 20, 2025 · at 28:12
Raja Manickam explains the strategic growth roadmap for Indian hardware startups, drawing lessons from China's domestic scaling strategy.
0:00 / 0:31exact quote · 32.0s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“We have an opportunity to create Indian companies and the Indian companies should focus on the Indian market first, right? Because this is where you learn how to build products or you learn how to improve on a product, right? You know, quality performance, how to sell, how to get the supply chain done, right? Because, you know, you, you're Indian, you know, you're selling to an Indian company or you're in their backyard, right? They will give you those opportunities as well. Then once you learn this and build it, then you go global. Which is what, you know, China did.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Raja Manickam
Manickam: India is not yet ready for a $5B advanced wafer fab
“But I don't think our country is ready for even five billion dollar fab because that's, you know, very high end, you know, nodes and all, you have to walk before we can run.”
Manickam: Whichever nation masters semiconductor manufacturing will rule the world
“Whoever, you know is able to master this is going to rule the world, right? I mean, this, I think, fundamentally, that has come to, you know, believe, right?”
Manickam: Asian fab engineers work seven days weekly unlike US workforce
“A Korean engineer or a Taiwanese engineer, you know, will work seven days a week, right? To get the process done and so on, right? Whereas in the US, you know there is you know, much more restrictions on labor and stuff like that.”
Manickam: Supporting foreign chip GCCs is not true semiconductor sovereignty
“I think, you know, the problem that I see for India could be that because of the GCCs and, you know, because we did a lot of software, IT and all that, right? For foreign companies, right? I hope the semiconductor doesn't take that path, right? Of, you know, j…”
Manickam: China will achieve self-sufficiency or cease importing US chips
“I think China will, you know, will be, you know, self-sufficient or at least, you know, make sure that they're not importing from us. So I think that is going to accelerate now.”
Manickam: Global tech innovation will fragment across India, China, Europe, and Japan
“Innovation is going to become not just concentrated in one country anymore. It is going to be India. It's going to be China. It's going to be Europe. It's going to be Japan, right? So there's going to be a lot more fragmented innovation that's going to happen.”