IIT Madras begins hosting Digital India RISC-V Symposium on Aug 1

IIT Madras began hosting the 3rd Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) Symposium 2026 at its Research Park in Chennai on Saturday, August 1, with the event continuing through August 2, 2026.

The two-day symposium is being organised in partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and RISC-V International, drawing policymakers, global technology experts, researchers, startups, investors, faculty and students.

This year’s theme, ‘Empowering Bharat’s Semiconductor Future,’ focuses on indigenous processor technologies, secure computing systems, hardware innovation, artificial intelligence and the country’s expanding RISC-V ecosystem.

The event includes keynote addresses, technical sessions, panel discussions, hands-on workshops, technology demonstrations, exhibitions and startup showcases, plus the DIR-V Grand Challenge Hackathon featuring RISC-V-based projects by students and startups.

Registration for in-person attendance closed on July 26, 2026, once the venue reached full capacity, though the symposium is being live-streamed on YouTube without any registration required.

As a licence-free, open-standard instruction set architecture, RISC-V has become a key pillar of India’s effort to build domestic chip design capacity and reduce dependence on imported processors.

MeitY has separately backed the development of indigenous RISC-V-based processors under its Digital India programme, part of a broader effort to build chip design capability alongside manufacturing incentives.

The Chennai event follows two earlier editions of the DIR-V symposium, each of which expanded in scale as more startups, research institutions and global chip companies engaged with India’s RISC-V initiatives.

RISC-V is an open-standard instruction set architecture that has drawn growing interest from chipmakers worldwide because, unlike proprietary architectures, it can be used and modified without licensing fees.

India’s semiconductor push has gathered pace over the past two years, with the government backing fabrication units, chip design centres and research programmes aimed at reducing reliance on imported processors.

IIT Madras Research Park, the venue for this year’s symposium, has emerged as a hub for deep-tech startups working on hardware, semiconductors and embedded systems in the country.

Photo by Tester051005, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0