The largest industrial gas producer in India, Inox Air Products Pvt. Ltd., intends to invest $300-500 crore in the construction of ultra-high purification facilities and a supply network for gases used by semiconductor production facilities in India.

Siddharth Jain, managing director of Inox Air Products, stated that the investments are being made in a modest manner this year and will be scaled up moving forward in tandem with the demand that will be created by semiconductor fabrication companies that will establish their facilities in the nation in the coming years.

Only eight of the 50 distinct, ultra-pure gases needed for chip production are readily available in India in raw form. The infrastructure required to transport and store all of the remaining 42 gases must also be imported.

Although the investments are not necessary right away, according to the company, they will be in the long run since India is luring chipmakers like Micron to establish chip assembly, testing, monitoring, and packaging units, or ATMP, and ultimately chip fabs locally.

Inox AP, a supplier of raw materials to solar cell and chip manufacturers, was also in talks with a number of ATMP units and chip fabs that were considering setting up shop in India.

To establish 10 production facilities by FY25, the company earlier this year outlined a 3,000 crore capital expenditure plan.

The cost of building up local production of the eight gases would be significantly greater, according to Jain, and the long-term capex requirements for Inox AP would depend on the availability of the remaining 42 gases locally.

Inox AP also intends to supply solar cell manufacturers like Jupiter International and Adani Group, both of whom have previously drawn up plans for gigawatt-scale solar fabs in India. For the designing, engineering, installation, and management of a cryogenic nitrogen generator to deliver high-purity nitrogen, the business has already inked a 20-year contract with First Solar, a well-known American solar technology company. For Tata Steel, it is making a separate investment of 1300 crore to establish up air separation machines.