Talent, Capital, and Courage Converge: Semiconductor Expert Ganapathy Subramaniam on India's Deep Tech Awakening

India's deep tech ecosystem is experiencing a promising surge, transitioning from a phase of limited product-oriented innovation to one marked by tangible progress and robust policy backing, according to Ganapathy Subramaniam, widely known as Gani, the Founding Managing Partner of Yali Capital. Ganapathy is also a semiconductor design business expert, where he founded a silicon IP company called Cosmic Circuits and sold it to leading EDA vendor Cadence. 

Ganapathy Subramaniam in an interactive session with attendees at IESA Vision Summit 2026 described India as still in the early innings of building a strong deep tech startup landscape. While the country boasts exceptional talent accounting for roughly 20% of the world's chip design expertise and a history of deep technical knowledge, it has historically excelled more in IT services and consumer-facing business models than in creating globally competitive product companies comparable to TSMC, Nvidia, Meta, or Microsoft. For too long, much of India's top engineering talent migrated abroad or remained confined within Global Capability Centers, resulting in few homegrown, Indian-headquartered ventures achieving significant scale relative to the nation's population and capabilities.

Yet, the past five to...