Govt to offer Rs 4.30 crore to start-ups\, students under Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge

Govt to offer Rs 4.30 crore to start-ups, students under Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge

The government is offering financial support of Rs 4.30 crore at various stages of the challenge for developing the hardware prototype and incubating a start-up

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday launched a 'Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge'

Key Highlights:      

  • Aimed at self-reliance and a momentous stride towards "Atmanirbhar Bharat"
  • The registration process begins on August 18, 2020, through MyGov portal
  • Indigenous microprocessors SHAKTI and VEGA have been rolled out under the aegis of MeitY

To provide further impetus to the strong ecosystem of the start-up, innovation and research in the country, "Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge- Innovate Solutions for #Aatmanirbhar Bharat" has been launched by Union Minister of Law & Justice, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad. The challenge invites innovators, start-ups and students to use SHAKTI (32bit) and VEGA (64 bit) microprocessors to develop various technology products.

Using the Open Source Architecture under the aegis of Microprocessor Development Programme of Ministry of Electronics and IT, SHAKTI and VEGA have been developed by IIT Madras and Center for Development of Advance Computing (CDAC), respectively.

According to the press release issued by Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY),  this initiative is aimed at meeting India's future requirements of strategic and industrial sectors. It also has the potential to mitigate the issues of security, licensing, technology obsolescence and most crucially to cut dependency on imports. The design, development and fabrication of these state-of-the-art processor variants at foundry in the country and abroad make for a successful leapfrog to ultimate goal of vibrant ecosystem of Electronic System Design & Manufacturing in the country.

This challenge is open to students at all levels and start-ups. The challenge demands contestants to not only tinker with these Swadeshi Processor IPs and facilitate them with innovating the frugal solutions for societal needs but also make available the entire home-grown ecosystem around Swadeshi Processors to develop the complex designs for catering to both global and domestic requirements in near future. A slew of benefits will be offered by MeitY to the contestants and technology resources that include internship opportunities and regular technical guidance from the best VLSI & Electronics System Design Experts in the country, along with business mentorship and funding support and facilitation by Incubation Centres.

MeitY is offering financial support of Rs 4.30 crore at various stages of the challenge for developing the hardware prototype and incubating a start-up. Spread over the period of 10 months, it will provide an opportunity for 100 semi-finalists to win Rs 1 crore of award; 25 finalists will win total Rs 1 crore of award and top 10 teams entering the finale will get the seed fund of total Rs 2.30 crore and incubation support for 12 months. All participants will get an opportunity to translate their innovations around Swadeshi Processors, showcase them at a higher viewership platform and facilitate them to scale from ideation to marketplace, thereby standing a chance to contribute to the overall mission of #AtmaNirbhar Bharat.