AI and Semiconductor Manufacturing to Create 4 Million Jobs in India by 2030, ETTelecom
NEW DELHI: Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology and soon-to-commercialise semiconductor manufacturing units would add new employment opportunities to India’s burgeoning electronics sector by 2030, a top official said.
“By 2030, 4 million (40 lakhs) jobs will be created,” Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) Secretary S Krishnan, citing a recent study, said. “Coding and programming kind of roles fundamentally will go, but newer jobs like application development will come up,” he added.
In a recent finding, NITI Aayog, a policy think-tank, said that by 2030-31, artificial intelligence presents an opportunity to create up to 4 million new, AI-first roles in the next five years in the tech services sector, while posing a threat of displacing up to 1.5 to 2 million jobs.
The study was conducted by the US-based Boston Consulting Group and the Delhi-based National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom).
“This (semiconductor) is highly automated and offers very high-level jobs. So, you have some technicians and others who have a lot of experience. But around it, there will be several jobs, because of all the other activities, including in allied industries.”
Overall, the electronics sector already employs about close to about 1.5 million or so, he added.
In the next five years, the electronics industry is expected to hire nearly 4.5 million individuals in the broader electronics sector, with 2 million already employed within the sector, according to the MeitY.
In 2025, the Centre also unveiled the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS) to locally develop the ecosystem and integrate it with global value chains. The segment is expected to create more than 1.4 lakh direct jobs by 2030-31.
The ECMS segment employs close to 60,000 people currently, the official added.
We have cleared three rounds of (ECMS) applications, which have about 25 companies,” Krishnan said, adding that the government aims to curtail imports of high-value electronics components.
Krishnan further said that the government is monitoring closely, and the progress of companies setting up semiconductor manufacturing facilities in India has been satisfactory, with commercial production commencing soon.
“We are pushing it. There will be no skillset challenge. There are some slippages due to a number of reasons as this is the first time it is coming up in India.”
Recently, the Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, said that India would manufacture semiconductor chips locally and is poised to become one of the world’s top four semiconductor manufacturing nations by 2032.
Driven by the demand from AI, electric vehicles (EV), and consumer electronics, India made a debut in the capital-intensive sector with approvals for 10 semiconductor-related facilities, including four plants – Tata Electronics, CG Semi, Kaynes Technology, and Micron Technology, are expected to kickstart commercial production in 2026.
