Kerala start-up unveils first AI system-on-chip

Thiruvananthapuram-based semiconductor start-up Netrasemi has announced the launch of its flagship AI system-on-chip (SoC), A2000. The company said the chip has successfully completed silicon bring-up, a critical stage of laboratory testing, and is being readied for commercial production at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in Taiwan next year.

Founded in 2020, Netrasemi is a ‘fabless’ company that designs and sells semiconductor chips while outsourcing their manufacturing to specialised facilities.

The A2000 AI chip targets applications such as smart surveillance cameras, edge AI boxes and intelligent video gateways. The company said on Friday (May 29, 2026) that the chip will enter volume production in 2027 and is expected to help global platform developers bring advanced AI algorithms to small edge devices.

A2000 is one of India’s first AI/ML chips and features Netrasemi’s in-house neural processor (NPU), vision cores (VPU), image signal processor (ISP), crypto engines and other hardware acceleration IP cores. It also incorporates the company’s patented heterogeneous graph-stream parallel processing architecture. The chip design will be shared with select OEMs for joint R&D aimed at developing further commercial use cases.

“Our SoCs go beyond conventional AI/ML integration by combining proprietary hardware acceleration IPs with domain-specific optimisations tailored for high-performance, real-time edge AI. The architecture is specifically designed for compact, power- and cost-sensitive edge devices. We are currently working with several leading OEMs to facilitate early sample evaluations, co-development and advanced R&D initiatives,” said Jyothis Indirabhai, co-founder CEO, Netrasemi, said.

The company acknowledged that the Central government’s Semiconductor Design Linked Incentive (DLI) and Design Infrastructure Support (DIS) schemes under MeitY played a key role in achieving the milestone. Netrasemi was among the first start-ups selected for ₹15 crore in DLI support in 2023 by MeitY. The company has so far raised ₹125 crore in funding from investors, including ZOHO and Unicorn India Ventures.

Asked about the relevance of the launch to Kerala’s start-up ecosystem, Mr. Indirabhai termed it “an opportunity to promote indigenous product manufacturing”.

“It is extremely important that Indian companies manufacturing products such as cameras, robots and low-cost IoT devices get early access to intelligent and cost-effective chips so they can develop their products faster. India’s ecosystem is more suited for product development; however, start-ups and governments often focus on the services sector,” he said.

Mr. Indirabhai also urged Kerala-based start-ups to collaborate with Netrasemi.

Netrasemi, in collaboration with the College of Engineering, Trivandrum (CET), has developed another SoC chip, the R1000 AI/ML MCU, for the IoT sensor market with support from MeitY’s Chip-to-Startup (C2S) programme. The company is also developing an advanced edge AI server chip, A4000, with MeitY support, which is expected to be fabrication-ready by the second quarter of 2027, it said.