Zoho shelves $700 M chipmaking plan, Sridhar Vembu unsure about tech
SaaS (software-as-a-service) major Zoho suspended its $700 million plan to expand into chip manufacturing.
Sridhar Vembu, Chief Scientist at Zoho Corp, took to social media platform X to share the development.
“On our semiconductor fab investment plan, since this business is so capital intensive it requires government backing, we wanted to be absolutely sure of the technology path before we take taxpayer money,” said Vembu, who had stepped down from his position as the CEO of the company in January this year.
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On our semiconductor fab investment plan, since this business is so capital intensive it requires government backing, we wanted to be absolutely sure of the technology path before we take taxpayer money.
We did not have that confidence in the tech so our board decided to shelve…
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) May 1, 2025
” data-type=”tweet” align=”center”>
On our semiconductor fab investment plan, since this business is so capital intensive it requires government backing, we wanted to be absolutely sure of the technology path before we take taxpayer money.
We did not have that confidence in the tech so our board decided to shelve…
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) May 1, 2025
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“We did not have that confidence in the tech so our board decided to shelve this idea for the time being, until we find a better tech approach,” he added.
The development was first reported by Reuters, citing sources.
In May last year, the company had reported that it would foray into chipmaking and was seeking incentives from the government.
Zoho’s $400 million semiconductor facility plan in the Mysuru region, which had got approval from the Karnataka government last December, and would have created 460 jobs in the state, also stands shelved.
