HCLTech opens two chip centres in Bengaluru and Hubballi for Rapidus
Engineers in Karnataka will help Japan's Rapidus prepare to make some of the world's most advanced chips.
In short
- On 26 October 2026, HCLTech and Japan's Rapidus opened two new HCLTech development centres, one in Bengaluru and one in Hubballi.
- Engineers there will do chip engineering work for Rapidus, such as mask design, layout design and process design kit (PDK) work.
- HCLTech will also help build a group of trained Indian engineers for Rapidus's needs in Japan.
Key numbers
2New centres: Bengaluru and Hubballi
2nmThe chip size Rapidus plans to make
FY2027Rapidus target for mass production (second half)
5Work areas at the centres
What happened
- Rapidus is a Japanese company building a factory to make very advanced logic chips (the "brain" chips in computers and AI systems).
- On 26 October 2026, HCLTech and Rapidus opened two HCLTech centres in Karnataka just for Rapidus's engineering work.
- Rapidus's CEO, Dr Atsuyoshi Koike, said a strong engineering team is key to its plans, and India gives it access to a large pool of engineers.
- HCLTech's CEO, C Vijayakumar, said advanced chips will shape the next ten years of technology, and called this a sign of growing India–Japan teamwork.
- The money involved and the number of engineers have not been shared.
What the centres will do
- Mask design: preparing the stencils used to print each chip layer.
- Layout design: drawing the real shapes of transistors and wires.
- PDK development: building the "rule book and parts kit" that chip designers use for a factory.
- DTCO: tuning the chip design and the factory process together for the best result.
- Design infrastructure: the tools and computer setup that design teams work on.
Why it matters
Why this is useful
- Rapidus gets skilled engineers in India to support its work in Japan.
- India gets hands-on work on one of the newest chip technologies in the world.
Why it is good for freshers
- Layout, PDK and mask work need ECE/VLSI graduates. Learn layout basics (Virtuoso or Magic), DRC/LVS and device physics.
- Hubballi is a tier-2 city, so chip jobs are growing beyond Bengaluru.
- The talent pipeline for Japan may open chances to work abroad later.
Why it is good for India
- It brings very advanced (2nm-class) chip know-how to Indian engineers.
- It makes the India–Japan chip partnership stronger.
Fresher jobs related to this story
Words in this story
- 2nm: a name for a very advanced chip-making generation. Smaller means more transistors in the same space.
- PDK (process design kit): files and rules from a factory that tell designers how to draw chips it can make.
- Layout: the exact drawing of a chip's shapes, layer by layer.