3rd Digital India RISC-V Symposium kicks off at IIT Madras

The 3rd Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) Symposium 2026 kicked off at IIT Madras’s Research Park in Chennai on Saturday, August 1, and runs through August 2, 2026.

Organised jointly by IIT Madras, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and RISC-V International, the two-day event has brought together policymakers, global technology experts, researchers, startups, investors, faculty and students.

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

The programme features keynote addresses, technical sessions, panel discussions, hands-on workshops, technology demonstrations, exhibitions and startup showcases, alongside the DIR-V Grand Challenge Hackathon showcasing student and startup projects built on RISC-V.

In-person registrations closed on July 26, 2026, after the venue reached full capacity, though the symposium is being live-streamed on YouTube and needs no registration to watch.

RISC-V’s open-standard, licence-free architecture has made it central to India’s push to build indigenous chip design expertise and cut its reliance on imported processors.

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.

Previous editions of the DIR-V symposium have drawn participation from chip designers, academic researchers and government officials, reflecting the event’s role as a meeting point for India’s RISC-V ecosystem.

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