Union min Vaishnaw launches Makers Lab at MNIT

Jaipur: Union electronics & IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw inaugurated a Makers Lab at MNIT Jaipur Thursday, calling on students to develop Rajasthan’s first semiconductor chip — a push that signals the state’s bid to join India’s strategic chip-making drive.

Officials said that the Makers Lab will provide students with experiential and hands-on training opportunities in both software and hardware technologies. This will include sensors, embedded systems, compute devices and electronics systems.

Vaishnaw announced plans to set up an Advanced Quantum Computing and Quantum Communications Lab and an AI lab at the institute, positioning MNIT as a new hub for advanced technology and talent development. The Quantum Lab will be established under the Electronics and ICT Academic Project of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Addressing students and faculty members, Vaishnaw said that while the current technological wave is being driven by AI, the next major technological wave will be led by Quantum Technology.

“The work to be undertaken under this project will be significant for the country. The lab will also undertake research in Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), which is important from the national security perspective. MNIT Jaipur must take a leadership role in the area of post-quantum cryptography,” said Vaishnaw.

He also announced that students of MNIT Jaipur will get access to Lam Research’s “Semiverse” platform, which is a digital twin-based semiconductor fabrication and training ecosystem. Through Semiverse, students can study semiconductor chip structures in 3D, understand chip manufacturing processes and simulate fabrication steps in a virtual environment.

Encouraging students, the minister said that there is a demand for over a million semiconductor design workforce, as per industry’s estimate, and India can easily bridge this gap with young generation joining this workforce. He added that Govt of India, as part of Chips to Startup (C2S) Programme, is providing Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools to more than 323 universities across the country.