Israel’s Tower Semiconductor has partnered with Indian conglomerate the Adani Group to invest $10 billion in a semiconductor plant in Maharashtra, India.

The project was announced by Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in a post on X/Twitter.

According to Fadnavis, the proposed fab will create more than 5,000 jobs and, at full capacity, would produce 40,000 wafers per month in Phase 1, and 80,000 per month after Phase 2.

The new fab isn't Adani Group's only current investment in Maharashtra. In January 2024, the company announced it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Maharashtra government to invest $6bn and develop 1GW of data center capacity over the next decade.

In February 2024, it was reported that Tower Semiconductor had submitted a proposal to the Indian government for the construction of a $8bn chip fabrication plant to produce 65nm and 40nm chips for use in automotive and wearable electronics. It’s unclear if the fab announced today is the result of this proposal. DCD has reached out to Tower Semiconductor for clarification.

Tower submitted its original proposal for the semiconductor fab under India’s Modified Programme for Semiconductors and Display Fab Ecosystem. The $10 billion scheme allows companies to apply for up to 50 percent of capital costs for eligible semiconductor and display manufacturing projects, meaning the Indian government would stump up $4bn for this venture.

The company had previously applied to the scheme in partnership with international consortium ISMC, with a proposal to build a $3bn plant in India’s southern Karnataka state. However, that plan ran into issues relating to Intel’s since-cancelled plan to acquire Tower.

Earlier this week, Indian Prime Minister Modi signed a MoU with the Singaporean government, pledging that the two countries work together to strengthen their respective semiconductor ecosystems.