India’s engineering talent has emerged as a core pillar in Qualcomm’s push to develop its next‑generation 2‑nanometre processor node, underpinning both design and advanced R&D activities that will feed into commercial launches expected in the next calendar year.

This aligns closely with New Delhi’s semiconductor and AI ambitions, where global majors such as Qualcomm are increasingly using India not just as a market, but as a development and innovation hub.

According to Qualcomm India president Savi Soin, work on 2nm chips is being carried out across multiple global locations, with India occupying a central role owing to the sheer concentration of engineers based here, the largest for the company worldwide.

In Oct this year, PM Modi lauded Qualcomm's efforts in India's Semiconductor and AI missions, following discussion with the multinational's president and chief executive Cristiano Amon

This concentration of high‑end design capability in India allows Qualcomm to distribute complex front‑end and IP design tasks to local teams, while coordinating architecture and verification across its global network.

The upcoming 2nm system‑on‑chip (SoC) is positioned to deliver higher processing performance and significantly better energy efficiency for future smartphone platforms, sharpening Qualcomm’s competitiveness in premium and flagship devices.

Qualcomm’s roadmap indicates that these improvements will be particularly critical for AI workloads, advanced camera pipelines, connectivity processing and sustained gaming performance in top‑tier handsets.

Mass production of Qualcomm’s 2nm chipset is planned through its long‑standing foundry partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which is expected to commence large‑scale 2nm manufacturing in 2026.

This fabless–foundry collaboration allows Qualcomm’s India‑based design teams to target TSMC’s advanced process design kits (PDKs) and design rules, optimising SoC layouts and power‑performance trade‑offs for the 2nm node.

Competition at this leading edge is intensifying, with Taiwanese rival MediaTek also working with TSMC to bring its own 2nm processors into volume production around late 2026. The parallel ramp‑up by both Qualcomm and MediaTek indicates that 2nm will quickly become a key differentiator in the flagship Android ecosystem, especially for power‑efficient AI and modem‑integrated SoCs.

Market research from Hong Kong‑based Counterpoint Research suggests that 3nm and 2nm nodes together will reach a major inflection point by 2026, with about one‑third of smartphone SoCs expected to be fabricated on these processes.

The primary drivers identified are the need for higher compute performance, improved energy efficiency, and better thermal characteristics to support AI inference, advanced imaging, and extended battery life in increasingly thin devices.

In the initial two to three years of deployment, 2nm chipsets are projected to remain confined largely to premium and flagship smartphones, reflecting both cost structures and early capacity constraints at leading foundries.

Over time, as yields improve and manufacturing scales, these advanced nodes will gradually cascade into upper‑mid segment devices, expanding their impact on the broader handset market.

Within India, Qualcomm has been deepening its design and R&D footprint, exemplified by the semiconductor design centre inaugurated in Chennai in March last year.

This facility supports global research in next‑generation mobile and computing solutions, including Snapdragon platforms and AI‑centric capabilities, while also contributing to the company’s wider 5G and Wi‑Fi technology roadmap.

The company has invested around ₹180 crore in the Chennai design centre, underlining its long‑term commitment to developing intellectual property out of India. Beyond core smartphone SoCs, teams here are engaged in IP creation that feeds into multiple product lines, improving Qualcomm’s ability to localise solutions and shorten development cycles.

India‑based engineering groups are currently working on a diverse portfolio that spans next‑generation fixed wireless access (FWA), Wi‑Fi 8, new compute products, affordable 5G phone platforms, hearables, and AR/VR‑style glasses. Such breadth indicates that India is not restricted to low‑end work, but is instead handling complex system design and protocol innovation across connectivity and edge‑compute domains.

Savi Soin emphasises that Qualcomm already has intellectual properties developed in India, backed by what he describes as best‑in‑class teams driving key aspects of chip development from the country. The company adopts a talent‑driven allocation strategy, mapping critical design responsibilities to locations where the strongest expertise resides, with India consistently emerging as one of the most important centres from a development standpoint.

This expanding footprint dovetails with the Government of India’s Make in India and broader semiconductor missions, which seek to attract cutting‑edge design, R&D and eventually manufacturing into the domestic ecosystem.

Qualcomm’s design centre strategy therefore not only supports its own global product pipeline, including the 2nm SoC, but also contributes to local capability building in advanced chip design and AI platforms.

At the political level, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has publicly acknowledged and encouraged Qualcomm’s role in India’s semiconductor and AI missions, following engagements with the company’s president and CEO Cristiano Amon.

Such high‑level signalling is likely to reinforce policy support and collaborative initiatives, further embedding India into Qualcomm’s global technology roadmap and strengthening the country’s position in the advanced semiconductor value chain.

Based On ET Telecom News