India has become an increasingly important part of AMD’s global footprint. The US chip maker now operates its second-largest design centre outside the United States, in Bengaluru, with more than 9,000 employees representing a substantial portion of AMD’s worldwide talent base. “There is no AMD product released globally without contributions from the India-based engineering teams,” says Jaya Jagadish, country head & senior vice-president, Design Engineering, AMD India. She speaks to Sudhir Chowdhary on how their enhanced India focus aligns with the country’s ambitions to become a global leader in semiconductor and AI technology. Excerpts:
How does the India operation align with AMD’s broader global strategy?
AMD India has grown to become a cornerstone of our global operations. We now operate the company’s second-largest design centre outside the United States, with more than 9,000 employees representing a substantial portion of AMD’s worldwide talent base. Our Indian engineering teams hold end-to-end ownership across AMD’s complete product range, from high-performance CPUs that power enterprise servers and personal computers to advanced GPUs for data centres and gaming, as well as adaptive SoCs and FPGAs for specialised embedded systems.
The quality and impact of work emerging from India matches our highest global standards. Our engineers here tackle the industry’s most demanding technical challenges in high-performance and adaptive computing, delivering innovations that are essential to AMD’s next-generation platform solutions that must deliver both exceptional performance and energy efficiency in an increasingly competitive market.
What are some of the most innovative product developments currently being driven by AMD’s global design teams in India?
AMD India is an important part of our global innovation efforts. Our engineers in India are not just contributing – they are leading advancements in CPUs, GPUs, AI accelerators, and adaptive SoCs. For example, India has played a pivotal role in the development of our Zen architecture, as well as in advancing data centre and AI platforms that power everything from supercomputers to healthcare AI applications.
The shift we’ve seen is from collaboration to ownership. Many product domains – like our software teams, DPU teams are based here with end-to-end accountability, and India holds significant ownership of AMD’s server roadmap. Whether it’s IP development, SoC design, or system-level verification for EPYC server processors, our engineers are deeply embedded in driving AMD’s global success.
What are AMD’s top strategic priorities for its India operations over the next 3 to 5 years?
AMD’s strategic focus in India is centered around three core priorities – expanding engineering capabilities, fostering deep tech talent, and accelerating innovation in AI-driven design. We’re investing in scaling our global design center to support product innovation across AI, high-performance computing, and adaptive platforms. Our recent expansion of the Bengaluru campus reflects this long-term commitment. We’re also strengthening industry-academia collaboration and building talent that is equipped to solve complex engineering problems at a global scale. India will continue to play a central role in shaping AMD’s future technologies.
What key skills and capabilities are AMD developing in India to support emerging technologies?
The skills needed in our industry are evolving rapidly, especially with AI, HPC, and edge computing reshaping what’s possible. One of the fastest-growing areas is applying AI and machine learning to chip design and using advanced algorithms to optimise semiconductor design and manufacturing. The demand for professionals with expertise in applying AI/ML to chip design is increasing as AI and machine learning are being used more to optimise semiconductor design and manufacturing. With an increasing demand for IoT, automotive, and consumer electronics, skilled embedded systems engineers & firmware developers are also on the rise.
With growing focus on cybersecurity at the hardware level, the demand for engineers specialising in secure hardware design is steadily rising. This is still an emerging skill in India.
How is AMD contributing to India’s AI Mission and broader national AI goals?
India is entering a truly transformative phase in AI. The government’s push to expand compute access, build research infrastructure, and drive innovation is a bold and timely decision that will accelerate India’s global leadership in AI. At AMD, we are fully aligned with this vision and see ourselves as partners in this journey. Our scalable, energy-efficient technologies, from high-performance data center processors to AI accelerators – are all designed to power the complex workloads shaping this new era, whether it’s training large language models, building multilingual applications, or running inference at scale. We are particularly encouraged by initiatives such as the open GPU marketplace and subsidised compute access, which perfectly align with AMD’s open ecosystem approach by enabling innovation across startups, academia, and industry.
Are there any plans to expand your engineering ecosystem?
India has been central to AMD’s growth journey for the past 20 years and is our second largest engineering hub. In fact, we’ve grown fourfold in the last five years, a testament to the incredible talent here. In 2023, we had announced a $400 million investment to expand our R&D capabilities in Bengaluru, which includes the development of our largest global design centre at the Technostar campus with 3000 seating capacity and we’re also expanding our offices in Hyderabad with an additional 600 seats. Our teams in India now have end-to-end ownership of critical work, a strong and growing leadership pipeline, and we’re actively investing in early talent through programs like our co-op hiring. We remain deeply committed to India as a strategic hub for innovation, engineering, and global collaboration.
