Zoho To Invest USD 700 Mn In Semiconductor Manufacturing, Seeks Govt Support

New Delhi, May 17 (KNN) Zoho, an Indian multinational technology company, is venturing into semiconductor manufacturing with an ambitious plan to invest a staggering USD 700 million.

The company has approached the Indian government, seeking subsidies under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, and its proposal is currently under review by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), reported Reuters.

The company aims to manufacture compound semiconductor chips for specialised commercial applications.

Zoho has identified a technology partner to establish its semiconductor operations from the ground up.

The company's founder and CEO, Sridhar Vembu, had previously expressed his intention to establish a semiconductor design project in his hometown, Tenkasi, located in southern Tamil Nadu.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) in March 2024, Vembu mentioned partnering with Ananthan Ayyasamy, a former engineering director at Intel, stating, "We have been planning a semiconductor design project in Tenkasi. Ananthan's expertise in this field is unrivalled, and we will work together to create advanced chip design know-how in this rural region."

The company, along with its enterprise IT management arm, ManageEngine, is customising and fine-tuning existing foundational models like GPT-4 and Claude 3, as well as open-source models like Meta's Llama 7b, for its customers.

Additionally, Zoho is building its own large language model (LLM), expected to be around 70 billion parameters and slated for completion by the end of 2024.

(KNN Bureau)