The investment centers on a new 140-acre research park iwhere the company will expand research and development, introduce new technologies and grow its India-based supply chain tenfold, Data Center Dynamics reported. Applied Materials already runs chip equipment design, testing, validation and research operations in Bengaluru, and has quadrupled its India workforce to more than 7,000 employees over the past decade.
Prabu Raja, president of Applied Materials’ Semiconductor Products Group, said the expansion reflects the pace the industry now demands. “We can invent together and develop a product together. It’s all about speed today.” Raja, who holds a doctorate in plasma physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, joined Applied Materials as a process engineer in 1995 and was named an Applied Fellow in 2010.
The announcement came as Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, opened SEMICON India 2026, a three-day event in New Delhi, in northern India, that drew 600 companies from fifty-two countries, Data Center Dynamics reported.
For American executives watching where global chip equipment investment is heading, Applied Materials’ decade-long commitment marks India as more than an assembly location: a rising base for the semiconductor research and supply chain work companies used to keep closer to home.
