Rohde & Schwarz Expands Bengaluru R&D Into AI and Chip Design

Rohde & Schwarz is giving its Bengaluru engineering operation a bigger role in the company’s global technology roadmap, adding a dedicated AI and machine learning design centre while preparing the site for advanced chip-design work.

The expansion marks a shift from using India primarily as an engineering and support base to developing silicon-level technologies there for products destined for global markets. The company says the new centre will draw on Bengaluru’s pool of AI, machine learning and semiconductor engineers and is expected to create several specialised technology roles over the next two to three years. 

The move builds on an established R&D presence rather than starting from scratch. Rohde & Schwarz India already employs more than 500 people, with Bengaluru serving as one of its two Indian R&D centres alongside New Delhi. The existing engineering work spans areas including wireless communications, test and measurement and secure communications. 

What changes with the new centre is the depth of that work. Bringing AI/ML development and future chip design into the same campus as systems engineering could shorten the distance between semiconductor-level development and the products that ultimately use it.

That matters for Rohde & Schwarz because its portfolio increasingly depends on sophisticated signal processing, communications, measurement and security technologies. Developing more of the underlying intelligence and silicon internally could give the company greater control over performance and product roadmaps.

The strategy also fits a broader shift in India’s technology ecosystem. Global technology companies are increasingly using Indian engineering teams not only for software development or product support but for increasingly specialised semiconductor and hardware work.

Rohde & Schwarz is explicitly framing the Bengaluru expansion as “Make in India, for the world” using local engineering talent to create technologies for its worldwide business. Company CEO described India as a long-term strategic priority, pointing specifically to the country’s young talent in AI, machine learning and semiconductor design. 

For India’s semiconductor ambitions, that is the more interesting signal: global engineering centres are increasingly being asked not just to develop around chips, but to help design the chips themselves.