Coimbatore industries should tap the opportunities offered by Artificial Intelligence and electronics sectors, said S. Krishnan, Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India (MeitY).

Mr. Krishnan, who inaugurated the renovated building of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore, and presented the GK Sundaram Awards instituted by the Chamber, at a function held in Coimbatore city on May 29, 2026 (Friday), said the Union government has increased the outlay for the Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme to ₹40,000 crore and it was available till next July. Tamil Nadu has the highest number of proposals under this scheme with 41 units planned at ₹61,000 crore investment. Industries in Coimbatore should also make use of the scheme. There is also huge scope for capital machinery for the electronics sector that is growing rapidly.

There are 12 projects planned under the semi conductor mission and two of these were commissioned recently in Gujarat. Another three are likely to be commissioned this year. Coimbatore should explore opportunities in electronics, AI, semi conductors and various segments of the manufacturing vertical in the digital economy. Coimbatore can adopt AI in various manufacturing processes. “AI is becoming a stack bringing together all fields. It needs adequate power for the data centres. Then there are models that come under services segment, production of chips, development of applications, IT and IT enabled services,” he pointed out.

The digital economy is expected to grow at 20 % annually by 2030 and will make up one-fifth of the Indian economy. It is growing at the twice the rate as the other economies, he added.

Mahaveers (trade category), Rangammal Steels and Malleables (industry), and NV Nagasubramaniam (service) were the recipients of the GK Sundaram Awards.

A.V. Varadharajan, former president of the Chamber, explained about the Award, and Rajesh B. Lund, president of the Chamber, welcomed the gathering.