Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Opens Semiconductor Centre, Emphasizes AI and Startups

Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw inaugurated the Vinod Dham Centre of Excellence for Semiconductors and Microelectronics at Delhi Technological University. During his address, Vaishnaw emphasized that today´s youth have myriad opportunities to start businesses. He highlighted the accessibility to technology, mentorship, funding, and global markets as key enablers for startups. The new semiconductor lab will allow students to gain hands-on experience in manufacturing, fabrication, and design processes.

In addition to the centre´s inauguration, Vaishnaw discussed the progress of evaluating Artificial Intelligence Language Learning Model (LLM) applications. He mentioned that the ministry expects to award the first few LLM model teams within the next few weeks, which will then receive funding under the national Artificial Intelligence mission. Furthermore, Vaishnaw disclosed that following the initial acquisition of 14,000 GPUs as part of the AI mission, preparations for a second round of GPU acquisition are currently in progress.