For Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran, the group's bet on semiconductors is not about getting the numbers right in the next two or three years, but about investing in a sector that will be critical to India's long-term growth. He said the group's experience has shown that investments made with the country's needs in mind have consistently proved to be the right decisions.
“Whether we get semiconductor chips right or we get the numbers right in two-three years, that is not the point. Chips are going to be fundamentally required for domestic consumers,” said Chandrasekaran. He was speaking at a panel discussion on ‘The End of Predictability’ at the Bloomberg New Economy 2026 forum.
He said this investment philosophy had encouraged the Tata Group to venture into the semiconductor and electronics sectors.
Highlighting India's opportunity in global manufacturing, he said the country had the talent and domestic market to become an important player in global supply chains. “We have the talent, domestic market, we can play a part in every global supply chain. We need partnerships because we do not have all the technologies.”
Chandrasekaran also cautioned that even as risks are being taken, one should keep an eye on the balance sheet. “You have to be careful, and keep an eye on the balance sheet. One cannot be reckless. We need to see where the demand is,” he said.
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Tata Electronics is establishing a fabrication plant in Dholera, Gujarat, in partnership with Dutch company ASML. The company is also setting up a semiconductor assembly and testing facility in Assam, which is expected to produce 48 million chips per day.
When asked how the current global uncertainty is different from past events, Chandrasekaran said it was the first time that a number of things were happening together. These include geopolitical disruptions, AI disruption, and commodity and supply-chain disruptions. “At the same time the connected world is trying to decouple itself, it has never been decoupled. And tackling all of these things now is unique,” he added.
He identified technology as a major disruptor in the near term, especially when it gets into the hands of bad actors, and the labour restructuring that will eventually take place. “The other thing that I worry about is the war situation. We are opening a war in every situation, and nothing is getting closed,” he added.
Chandrasekaran said businesses should build resilience into their operations instead of focusing solely on efficiency in an unpredictable environment. He argued that the two were not mutually exclusive.
“In a highly unpredictable, volatile environment, optimising for efficiency is definitely not the right thing,” he said. “I believe that if you design for resilience in an unpredictable environment, actually you are optimising for efficiency.”
He cited shortages of magnets that can disrupt vehicle production and the cyberattack that affected Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), saying the company had almost lost six weeks of production because of the incident.
The group had also faced an air crash and supply-chain disruptions, he said, but still expected to deliver double-digit growth, with margins holding up. He did not specify the period or provide financial projections to quantify the outlook.
Chandrasekaran said he had asked companies across the group to define resilience for their own businesses rather than adopt a single framework.