At the centre of the story is a deceptively small piece of semiconductor technology:
Gallium Nitride — GaN.
Today, GaN is one of the most strategically important semiconductor technologies for high-frequency and high-power electronics. It can be used in radar, electronic warfare, satellite communications, telecom infrastructure and advanced power electronics.
And India's journey towards mastering it illustrates an important principle of technological sovereignty:
When a critical technology cannot be bought, the alternative is to learn how to build it.
The first dot: technology denial
During the Rafale negotiations, reports have circulated that India sought access to advanced GaN semiconductor technology associated with French defence electronics, but that the sensitive technology itself was not transferred.
The important distinction is between buying a finished component and acquiring the know-how to manufacture the underlying technology.
The former creates a customer.
The latter creates technological capability.
Public reporting on the Rafale-era episode is not accompanied by a publicly available French government document establishing every detail of the alleged request and refusal, so the claim should be treated cautiously. But the broader technology-denial narrative has been widely reported.
And then something important happened.
India did not remain dependent on imported GaN technology.
The second dot: DRDO starts building the capability
India's Defence Research and Development Organisation pursued indigenous GaN technology through its semiconductor research ecosystem.
The Solid State Physics Laboratory (SSPL) and Gallium Arsenide Enabling Technology Centre (GAETEC) worked on GaN semiconductor devices and MMICs.
By March 2023, GaN MMICs fabricated through this ecosystem had successfully undergone functionality testing. The development was significant because GaN MMICs are particularly relevant to high-frequency defence applications.
By 2024, DRDO had also announced indigenous work involving GaN HEMTs, alongside development of 4-inch silicon-carbide wafers. The reported GaN devices reached power levels up to 150 W.
This is much more significant than merely producing "a chip".
A modern radar or electronic-warfare system requires an entire RF semiconductor technology chain:
materials → epitaxy → transistor → MMIC → RF module → antenna system → radar/EW platform
Controlling more of that chain means controlling more of the technology.
But DRDO is only half the story
Here is where the story gets really interesting.
A defence laboratory can demonstrate a technology.
But a nation does not achieve semiconductor sovereignty simply by producing a successful laboratory prototype.
The technology has to escape the laboratory.
It needs:
research → manufacturing → testing → qualification → products → customers → scale
And that brings us to IISc and AGNIT Semiconductors.
The third dot: IISc's long GaN journey
Long before India's current semiconductor boom, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, had been working on GaN technology.
AGNIT says its technology base comes from more than 17 years of GaN research at IISc. The company emerged as an IISc spin-off in 2021. By 2022 it had sold its first wafers and developed RF prototypes, followed by commercial RF devices in 2023.
This is an extremely important distinction.
AGNIT isn't simply an Indian company assembling imported GaN components.
It describes itself as a fab-lite GaN semiconductor company, developing GaN wafers, components and modules for telecommunications, defence and strategic applications.
In other words:
Indian research → Indian IP → Indian startup → Indian GaN products.
That is the missing bridge between laboratory research and industrial capability.
The fourth dot: AGNIT starts building the industrial layer
The development becomes even more interesting in 2026.
AGNIT has established a ₹3-crore GaN testing and qualification laboratory at IISc Bengaluru.
The facility includes environmental testing capability from −60°C to +125°C, RF measurement equipment, connectorised load-pull testing and automated PCB assembly capability.
Why is testing so important?
Because making a transistor is not the same thing as making a reliable semiconductor product.
A defence or telecom customer needs to know:
- Does the device work across temperature?
- How stable is it?
- How much RF power can it deliver?
- What happens under stress?
- How does manufacturing variation affect performance?
- Can thousands of devices meet the same specification?
Qualification infrastructure is therefore part of semiconductor sovereignty.
AGNIT is effectively building another piece of that ecosystem.
Now connect the dots
Look at the sequence:
1. Strategic technology becomes inaccessible
GaN technology is considered strategically sensitive.
↓
2. India develops indigenous capability
DRDO/SSPL/GAETEC work towards indigenous GaN MMIC and device technology.
↓
3. Indian academic research matures
IISc spends years developing GaN materials, devices and fabrication expertise.
↓
4. Research becomes entrepreneurship
AGNIT emerges as an IISc spin-off.
↓
5. The startup develops actual products
AGNIT moves from wafers and prototypes to commercial RF devices.
↓
6. Qualification infrastructure appears
AGNIT establishes its own GaN testing and qualification laboratory at IISc.
↓
7. Defence and telecom become markets
GaN becomes relevant not only to strategic systems but also to telecom and other high-power/high-frequency applications.
And there is one more important dot
The Indian semiconductor story is no longer restricted to individual laboratories or startups.
The government is attempting to create a broader semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem.
That matters because a semiconductor startup cannot become strategically important if the surrounding manufacturing ecosystem doesn't exist.
You need:
- wafer fabrication
- epitaxy
- packaging
- testing
- qualification
- equipment
- materials
- skilled engineers
- government procurement
- private capital
- large customers
Only when these pieces connect does a country move from:
"We can design it."
to
"We can make it."
and eventually:
"We control the technology."
The AGNIT story is therefore bigger than one startup
AGNIT's importance isn't simply that it is producing GaN devices.
It represents a possible technology-transfer pipeline from Indian scientific research into industry.
Think of the architecture:
IISc
↓
fundamental research
Indian semiconductor process technology
↓
AGNIT
↓
commercial products
Defence / Telecom / Space / RF systems
That is precisely the kind of ecosystem India needs.
And this is why the story should not be reduced to:
"France refused to give India GaN technology."
The much bigger story is:
India developed the scientific capability to reproduce and commercialise a strategically important technology instead of remaining permanently dependent on the country that possessed it.
France and India: the irony
There is also an interesting geopolitical twist.
France and India today have an increasingly deep strategic relationship.
So this isn't really a story about India "defeating France".
It is a story about strategic autonomy changing the nature of partnerships.
A technologically dependent country negotiates from a position of weakness.
A technologically capable country can collaborate from a position of strength.
That distinction matters enormously in defence.
From buyer to technology partner
This is ultimately what India's semiconductor strategy should be about.
Not merely:
"How many fabs can India build?"
But:
"How many critical technologies can India understand deeply enough that denial no longer cripples us?"
GaN is a perfect example.
A technology that was once difficult to access becomes an Indian research problem.
The research becomes an Indian engineering capability.
The engineering capability becomes a startup.
The startup develops products.
Products enter strategic markets.
And the surrounding ecosystem begins to grow.
That is how technological sovereignty is built.
Not overnight.
Not through slogans.
But through 15–20 years of scientific research, engineering, failed experiments, prototypes, manufacturing, testing, capital and persistence.
The real lesson
The most important line in this entire story may therefore be:
Technology denial can delay technological progress. It does not necessarily prevent it.
India's GaN journey illustrates something deeper about national technological development.
DRDO brings strategic mission and defence requirements.
IISc provides deep scientific research.
AGNIT provides the entrepreneurial bridge.
Capital provides scale.
Testing and qualification provide industrial credibility.
Government policy provides ecosystem support.
And the final objective is not merely to manufacture a GaN chip.
It is to create an ecosystem in which the next generation of strategic semiconductor technology can be developed inside India.
That is the real meaning of semiconductor sovereignty.
And perhaps the most fascinating part of the story is this:
The answer to "Can India build it?" is increasingly becoming — "Give the Indian scientists enough time."
