By Erick This week saw steps taken by the Indian Government to cement India’s ambitions as a global leader in the semiconductor space. PM Modi, in his 79th Independence Day speech, announced that by the end of 2025, there will be a Made in India chip. This strengthens India’s semiconductor ambitions, and it’s got Indian tech bros (and me) more excited than ever because this means a lot for India – for industry as well as consumers.
It is also a significant step to becoming self-reliant, which is also something the PM talked about. Feels like he threw shade at the US with their whole tariff policy, implying they are really unreliable as a trading partner. I imagined that and I love it!
For those who are more interested, I’d recommend reading this piece from the Economic Times. Did you know that India started making semiconductors well before TSMC (which today supplies more than 50% of the world’s chips) and there was a mysterious fire in Mohali that set the mission back? Read the piece.
Here’s the most important tech news from India this week:
- The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved four new semiconductor projects (two in Odisha, one in Andhra and one in Punjab) under the India Semiconductor Mission. The total investments in these four projects are pegged at around Rs 4,600 crore. It is expected to generate employment for 2034 skilled professionals. This takes the total number of approved chip manufacturing facilities in India to 10.
- Rapido becomes the latest to enter the zero commission model for cab drivers – where drivers pay a subscription fee to Rapido and keep all earnings from their trips. Ola and Uber had piloted this model earlier this year.
- Rapido also enters the food delivery space, with a new app called ‘Ownly’. This also uses the zero-commission model where delivery drivers keep 100% of their fares. Right now, this new app services certain areas of Bangalore. This also has implications for Zomato and Swiggy, not just because of the competition, but also because the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI), which claims to represent over 50,000 eateries, started conversations with Rapido to finalise terms and conditions (T&C) for bringing restaurant partners on the platform. NRAI had said that, given that Swiggy and Zomato charge high commissions, the association is actively exploring a third alternative.
- In its third acquisition in six months, Infosys is buying 75% of Australian firm Versent in a JV with Telstra, signalling an acquisition-led growth push. Whatever. Let’s remember also that Infosys promised to hire 20,000 people this year (see TWITI #30 of 2025).
- OnePlus has partnered with Bhagwati Products Ltd (BPL) to produce its latest tablets – the OnePlus Pad 3 and OnePlus Pad Lite—in India. The devices will roll out from BPL’s flagship facility in Greater Noida.
- Optiemus Infracom announced the launch of India’s first domestically manufactured tempered glass for mobile screen protection. Designed and engineered by Corning, Optiemus will be manufacturing the tempered glass at its Noida facility.
Globally, Apple announced its next event on 09th September 2025 where it is expected to launch its heavily-leaked iPhone 17 series. And before that, the Made by Google event is on 20th August 2025. But before 1000’s of people go and jump on the latest iPhone / Pixel bandwagon, and they will, we need to pause and consider a disturbing trend. This trend is that not only are the number of purchases on EMI increasing, the number of defaults are increasing too.
Also, tech bros around the world seemed to be losing their mind that Perplexity and Puch AI made 35bn and 50bn USD offers respectively to buy Chrome off Google. One of the things this signals is – if you’re a chrome user, which is the vast majority of us – how much data our browsers collect off us. And no, incognito mode doesn’t offer super-enhanced privacy.
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