Highway to Thailand is Assam’s trump card in $3 bn pitch for chipmakers
Last Updated on May 26, 2025 8:05 pm
By Shouvik Das
New Delhi: The India-Myanmar-Thailand highway will give Assam the opportunity to export India-made semiconductor chips and attract investments from South-east Asia to open factories in the state, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Monday.
“The tri-nation highway will be ready for operations within the next three years, as certain points of stress in the Myanmar region ease out. Once this happens, Assam will have direct connectivity with the South-east Asia region—which could be key to field electronics clients in the region to export chips made in India, and also have companies from the region come set-up their factories in Assam,” Sarma said in an interview.
“While the likes of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and now even Gujarat may have more developed ecosystems, we’re providing subsidies and this strategic advantage for companies”.
The chief minister was on a tour of Delhi to meet stakeholders of the electronics and semiconductor industries, including government officials backing India’s push to build a chip and electronics components manufacturing ecosystem.
Sarma said he will have “further meetings in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai, before making further announcements” of companies that would set-up operations in Assam, based on state subsidies.
The strategic highway is expected to boost trade between each of the three nations, which would be key for India in terms of both imports and exports. In February this year, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said construction is at an advanced stage, and that it should be completed soon.
₹25,000 cr in subsidies to woo chipmakers
For Sarma, this presents a strategic advantage to sell to companies, for whom Assam might be an unknown tech manufacturing destination. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu already have substantial tech manufacturing hubs with close connectivity with ports and proximity to urban hubs—factors which Assam is yet to build out.
To make up for this, Sarma is offering companies an immediate tranche of subsidies subject to the Centre’s support.
“We’re offering a total of ₹25,000 crore ($3 billion) as subsidies for semiconductors and electronics component makers. This tranche is not being rolled out in phases—we’re ready with it, and if we get the right companies, we’re ready to offer them these subsidies within one week of the Centre offering their subsidy.
Our policy framework for electronics and semiconductors, which has already been notified, offers 60% of the Centre’s subsidy as additional incentives to companies setting up shop in Assam,” Sarma added.
The state has been a benefactor of multiple announcements from industrial conglomerates in the recent past. In February this year, the Tata group announced a ₹30,000 crore ($3.5 billion) investment in Assam, which will span mobile phone manufacturing and renewable energy development.
Earlier this month, billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani individually announced investments of ₹50,000 crore ($5.8 billion) and ₹75,000 crore ($8.8 billion) to build facilities that will influence sectors such as artificial intelligence, telecommunications, digital connectivity, green energy, infrastructure and logistics.
All of this is a part of the state’s pitch to develop a self-sustaining circular economy in technology over a decade.
“It’s not as much about the revenue that we will generate out of our push to build electronics in India. In the long run, we hope to create mass-scale employment because a lot of activities linked directly and indirectly to electronics and semiconductors involve labour-intensive processes. In the long run, as these industries mature, jobs will soar, and this will lead to industrialization and development at scale,” Sarma said.
Industry stakeholders said the region’s push as a greenfield area of development can gain as the Tata chip testing plant in Jagiroad, 55 km from the capital Guwahati, nears completion.
“The chip testing plant will produce 48 million chips per day, and this will necessitate the presence of suppliers closer to the region—chip testing is a low-margin business, and you don’t want suppliers and components makers based in other regions. This would be key, and a lot of questions around whether Assam’s pitch will find takers will depend on the development that the Tata, Reliance and Adani groups undertake in the region,” said a senior consultant with direct knowledge of development of the government’s electronics and semiconductor plans.
To this end, Sarma added that “there will be export opportunities for the Tata chip plant, and only internal demand will not be enough.”
“The Tata chip plant has a strategic need for gas suppliers, and a number of these suppliers are now setting up facilities near Jagiroad to build facilities there. More such suppliers will eventually come, which is why the subsidies and the tri-nation link-road are critical too,” he said.