Reliance Industries enters into a joint venture with American electronics firm Sanmina and plans to invest up to $221 million as the Indian giant looks to expand its electronics manufacturing.
The joint venture aims to create a “world-class” electronic manufacturing hub in India and will prioritize high technology infrastructure hardware, for growth markets, and across industries such as communications networking (5G, cloud infrastructure, hyper-scale datacenters), medical and healthcare systems, industrial and cleantech, and defence and aerospace.
As per reports, All the manufacturing will initially take place at Sanmina’s 100-acre campus in Chennai, with the ability for site expansion to support future growth opportunities as well as to potentially expand to new manufacturing sites in India over time based on business needs.
In order to support the product development and hardware startup ecosystem in India, The joint venture will create a “Manufacturing Technology Center of Excellence.”
Reliance Strategic Business Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, will own a 50.1% share in the joint venture, as per filings with the stock exchange. The American firm had partnered with EV maker Ather Energy in 2018 to develop and manufacture key components for the scooter.
Akash Ambani, Director of Reliance Jio said, “We are delighted to work with Sanmina to access the significant market opportunity for high-tech manufacturing in India.”
“For both growth and security, it is essential for India to be more self-reliant in electronics manufacturing in Telecom, IT, Data Centers, Cloud, 5G, New Energy and other industries as we chart our path in the new digital economy. Through this partnership we plan to boost innovation and talent in India, meeting both Indian and global demand,” He further added.
This is the latest move from an Indian giant to expand its electronics manufacturing in the country as Narendra Modi’s government makes a broad effort to boost domestic production. Last month Vedanta Group inked a partnership with Taiwan’s Foxconn to make semiconductors in the country.
The partnership also comes at a time when India’s government is offering almost $7 billion of incentives to boost the electronics manufacturing sector.
