Indian Startup BigEndian Develops Surveillance Chips to Rival China
Bengaluru-based BigEndian Semiconductors is developing surveillance camera chips to reduce reliance on Chinese hardware. The fabless startup leverages India's $9 billion semiconductor push and a massive domestic market to build a platform-as-a-service model.
BigEndian Semiconductors is stepping into the global semiconductor market by developing surveillance chips for cameras from its base in Bengaluru. The fabless startup, founded just four months ago by industry veterans from ARM, Broadcom, and Intel, targets a massive domestic market that consumes about 50 million cameras annually. This effort directly addresses the global "China-plus-one" strategy as companies seek secure alternatives to Chinese hardware.
The Indian government is actively supporting this transition by allocating a $9 billion budget to boost local semiconductor and display manufacturing. So far, the government approves four semiconductor units that attract approximately $17.9 billion in investments and plan to produce around 70 million chips daily. BigEndian is taking advantage of this favorable environment by working with Taiwanese fab company UMC to deliver its first 28nm reference chip by the first quarter of 2025.
Beyond traditional chip manufacturing, BigEndian is building a unique platform-as-a-service model that helps governments avoid relying on Chinese middleware. This software solution allows manufacturers and customers to customize their surveillance camera operations directly. The startup eventually plans to expand beyond surveillance into the broader IoT market, focusing primarily on 16- and 32-bit microcontrollers.