Govt 5G, semiconductor, initiatives to create massive opportunities

Government initiatives will provide startups with massive opportunities in the next few years, said Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister of Railways, communications, electronics and IT.

He flagged five areas that will provide significant opportunities in the coming months, mentioning 5G, public digital platforms, railways, semi-conductors, and electronics and telecom manufacturing.

“We will see these five areas with a whole series of opportunities in the coming months. With the existing policies we have managed 80-90 unicorns and with the additional policy focus we expect to take this number to 500-600 startups in the future,” said Vaishnaw.

Elaborating the opportunity in the 5G space, he said while the launch of 5G could not take off as planned due to pricing issues, the government encouraged research on a domestic 5G stack across core network, radio network, testing ecosystem and standards.

“We have the 5g core ready. 4G is fully built,” he said pointing to the success of this initiative. Many other companies and other countries or economies took years to develop the 4G technology stack whereas as India developed it within flat 14 months at a price tag of just about $30 million, he said, adding that India’s 4G stack is today almost a notch above what the global standards.

This virtualised 5G stack will provide opportunities for startups to offer solutions in autonomous networks, throughput optimization, tower device interaction, call integrity, machine-to-machine solutions, and IoT among others, he said.

The government is working towards more public digital stacks like Aadhar and UPI, he said building on the second opportunity in the public digital platforms.

“You (startups) will build this nation’s agriculture, language translation. All these will form the fundamental base over which B2C apps, your companies and solutions will be built,” he said adding that the national health stack is a recent opportunity.

On the opportunity in Railways, he said the government will roll out a technology challenge within the next month to invite startups to participate in the digital transformation ecosystem for the Indian railways.

“We will guarantee (assistance with) buying that product and building your business during that most difficult phase of the startup journey. We’ll make sure that you become part of the ecosystem you develop the solutions for India which can then be taken abroad where there is a huge market for transportation solutions.”

Through the semiconductor policy published last year, the government expects to support startups in this space with software tools for handling of patents, finding the market and getting the first chip fabricated among other areas.

“ We have received responses from 15-16 groups who have approached us with ideas for startups centered around semiconductors,” he stated elaborating on the opportunity in semiconductor manufacturing.

The fifth and final opportunity, he said, was in electronics and telecom manufacturing that is already worth $75 billion which can grow to $250 billion in the next five years.

He said 35 companies have availed the production linked incentives (PLI) for telecom equipment manufacturing that provides a huge ecosystem for designers for people who can provide solutions.

There are other opportunities in the EVs, blockchain in many more technologies, but these are the five where I’m directly associated, he said. Pehal News