Tata hires Intel’s Thakur to push chip-making biz
NEW DELHI: The Tata Group has roped in Intel Corp’s chief supply officer and head of chip business Randhir Thakur as a director at its subsidiary Tata Electronics in the conglomerate’s most ambitious bet yet to make chips—increasingly the bedrock of the century’s technological revolution.
Thakur is a semi-conductor veteran who was entrusted by Intel boss Pat Gelsinger to head the American chip maker’s standalone foundry business in March this year. His induction is aimed at helping Tata Electronics gain the expertise needed to design and manufacture chips, according to people familiar with the development.
The move comes amid a global shortage of semiconductor chips on account of conflicts with their leading supplier China. In India the automative industry has been a major casualty.
For now, it is not clear if Tata Electronics will make these chips or design them or both, as the company is still in the process of completing a planned $750 million-facility for making electronics components in Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
Neither is it clear if Thakur’s appointment on the Board of Tata Electronics signals a deeper partnership with the largest chip maker by sales.
Calls and a text message sent to Thakur seeking comment went unanswered.
Nipun Aggarwal, a senior vice president at Tata Sons who oversees strategy and M&A for the steel, infrastructure and defence business, Banmali Agrawala, president, infrastructure and defence & aerospace at Tata Sons, and Ajoy Mukherjee, former HR head at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, are the three other directors at Tata Electronics.
“The Group has entered into electronics and semi-conductor business and we are taking baby steps,” said an executive at the Tata Group on the condition of anonymity.
Earlier this week, Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran said the Group was working to tap into the business offered by high-tech manufacturing of electronics and also possibly semi-conductors.
“India can significantly benefit from the geopolitical shifts that we are seeing. At the group, we have already set up a business to seize the promise of high-tech manufacturing of electronics,” Chandrasekaran said.