New Delhi: Tata Electronics on Monday said it will manufacture and assemble chips for Intel Corp from its two facilities in Gujarat and Assam.
It will also assemble laptops and desktops featuring Intel’s chips from its domestic assembly facilities, the two companies said in a statement.
With this agreement, Intel becomes Tata’s first major client announced publicly for the latter’s chip facilities. Tata Electronics will provide assembling of Intel’s chips from its outsourced semiconductor assembling and testing (Osat) facility in Jagiroad, Assam.
Earlier this year, union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that Tata’s chip testing plant will begin its first phase of operations as early as April 2026.
The other chip fabrication, or fab, plant in Dholera, Gujarat is expected to start manufacturing chips for companies from mid-2027.
Intel, which has its own fabs largely in the US, also contracts manufacturing plants, such as the one Tata is building, to make chips at scale. An April 2025 report by Gartner pegged Intel as the world’s third-largest chipmaker behind Nvidia and Samsung.
As for the laptop assembly part, the two companies said the deal was to tap a growing demand for artificial intelligence chips in laptops and desktops, in which India is expected to be one of the world’s top five markets by 2030.
Tata, notably, works as an electronics manufacturing services (EMS) partner for Apple, and accounts for one-third of all iPhones assembled in the country, as per a 12 October report by market researcher, Counterpoint.
It is unclear whether Tata will set up a standalone assembly line to cater to Intel’s products. The two companies also did not specify the potential size of the partnership deal. Intel Corp had not filed its deal with Tata Electronics on the Nasdaq exchange in the US, where its shares are listed.
Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s chief executive, said at the signing of the deal that the move will help the company “rapidly scale in one of the world’s fastest-growing compute markets, fuelled by rising PC demand and rapid AI adoption across India.”
“This collaboration would drive cost competitiveness, faster time-to-market, greater operational agility, and enable Intel products to capture the surging demand for next-generation AI compute in India,” added Randhir Thakur, chief executive and managing director of Tata Electronics.
Interestingly, prior to joining Tata Electronics in April 2023, Thakur served as the president of Intel’s foundry services.
The deal comes amid a tumultuous phase for Intel’s chief Tan, who, earlier this year, faced demands from US President Donald Trump to resign. Trump later reversed his tone after Tan committed to aligning Intel with the former’s local manufacturing push.
Last month, Tan further faced allegations from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest chipmaker, for procuring protected information about the latter’s processes by hiring a retired, former TSMC executive.
Tan, as reported by Bloomberg on 21 November, has denied any wrongdoing, calling such allegations “rumour and speculation.”
Tata Electronics, meanwhile, is gearing up to expand its electronics and semiconductor business, after reporting ₹66,601 crore in revenue in FY25. The company is expected to report a further rise this fiscal, largely driven by increased assembling of Apple’s iPhones.
On 11 September, Mint reported that Tata’s mid-2027 target of making its chip fab functional may face a key challenge in sourcing rare earth elements, which is crucial in the semiconductor fabrication process. Tata’s Osat in Assam remains on course to begin commercial chip production, next year.