The first ever Made in India Processor, known as AJIT, has been revealed by a team from IIT Bombay. AJIT is the first ever processor to be made from scratch in India. Every phase of the processor’s development, from its design to production, took place in India.
A few months back, India also unveiled its first-ever RISC-V based processor called Shakti. It has a clock speed of around 400Mhz and can boot Linux. Both of these projects have been funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information technology (MeiTY) Government of India.
Made in India Processor Breakthrough
AJIT marks a breakthrough moment in Indian history as the Government of India, Academia and Indian industries came to work together. The birth of AJIT was supervised by Dr. Madhav Desai (Prof IIT Bombay) along with his team of 9 graduate students. Powai labs in Mumbai provided the team with the necessary infrastructure to build India’s first processor.
AJIT Specifications
AJIT is smaller than a desktop Intel processor and can be used as a microcontroller in several electronic devices from satellite dishes to automatic braking systems. The CPU has a clock speed of around 70-120Mhz and it can be mass manufactured for just INR 100 per unit.
Although the specs of AJIT might not seem groundbreaking, the processor represents a massive breakthrough in domestic electronic engineering. Just the fact that India has its own processor to be used in military equipment, nuclear reactors and other areas requiring maximum security, has given the nation a massive edge in every field.
There is no Intel ME backdoor to exploit and the army and other officials know exactly what is within the processor.
The processor also lays the groundwork for several upcoming engineering students who can take advantage of AJIT’s blueprints and learn processor design from scratch.
The Future of Made in India processors
The team involved in AJIT’s development wants the industry to adopt the processor as an industry standard. Currently, 10% of Indian exports amounts to electronics. This dependency can be reduced using AJIT. Furthermore, the more our Industry adapts this Made in India processor, the more advanced it will become.
Currently, the AJIT’s development team has made the software tools used in its creation public. The team wishes that more people get to learn the ingenuity of Indian engineering thus giving a boost to the Indian electronics manufacturing capability.
AJIT is a tremendous step by a group of extraordinarily talented people, which should be celebrated as such.
Read More: Linux Boots On “Shakti” — India’s First Ever RISC-V Based Silicon Processor
