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Hyderabad: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad and Purdue University have established the US-India Centre of Excellence in Semiconductors, a joint initiative aimed at bridging research, workforce development and industry collaboration between the two countries.

The centre connects complementary strengths on both sides, with American leadership in advanced semiconductor research and India’s scale in chip design talent.

“The United States brings leadership in advanced semiconductor research and innovation, while India brings scale, talent, and bold ambitions in manufacturing,” Vijay Raghunathan, Vice President at Purdue University and its ambassador to India, told SPAN, the magazine of the US Embassy in India.

India currently contributes nearly 20 per cent of the world’s semiconductor design workforce. Hyderabad is home to research and development (R&D) operations of leading American chip firms, including Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD and Synopsys.

IIT Hyderabad director BS Murty described the centre as “a one-stop solution for talent development and for collaboration between Indian and US academia and industry.” He told SPAN that it functions as a consortium linking universities, industry partners and government stakeholders in both countries.

The centre builds on an earlier workforce programme run jointly by the two institutions under the Ministry of Education’s Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC), through which 39 students completed training at both campuses, with many of them going on to join the semiconductor industry.

The initiative also aligns with the Government of India’s Semiconductor Mission, and includes coursework on export controls, intellectual property protection and responsible technology development, developed with support from a US Department of State grant.