IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Hyderabad vs Bengaluru: ‘There’s no competition’

Union minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, attended the 26th edition of the Bangalore Tech Summit 2023 on Thursday, where he spoke about Bengaluru’s evolution from a “retirement paradise” to the tech hub of India.

The IT minister said Bengaluru’s talent base is recognised across the world like no other city, except the Silicon Valley of the United States. And in a few years, Silicon Valley will be named the “Bangalore of the West,” he predicted.

As for cities within India trying to compete with Bengaluru – Chandrasekhar, a Bengaluru resident – said there is no competition because Bengaluru is miles ahead.

According to the IT minister, Bengaluru has “swiftly expanded and diversified its capabilities from IT” – today, it houses the engineering and R&D center of “every semicon brand or every semicon major including AMD, Applied Materials, Lam research, Intel, every company include Fujitsu.”

“And more importantly than just having a back office R&D, the engineering of the next generation of devices are happening here,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar at the Bangalore Tech Summit 2023 session. “So while other cities may try and compete with Bengaluru -- the Hyderabad Bengaluru competition is a legendary competition -- but I think it's a no competition.

“Bengaluru's talent base today is recognized by the world like no other city outside of Silicon Valley. And I think a lot has to do with successive governments and how we have built talent in this in Bengaluru,” he added.

He admitted that as a Bengaluru resident, he sometimes feels conflicted when inviting newer brands and companies to set up their offices in the city, thereby contributing to its traffic problem.

“Sometimes as a Bengalurean, I have mixed emotions. I in the morning when I meet with great brands and companies and I say ‘go to Bengaluru’. Then in the afternoon, I think ‘should I be really telling them to go to Bengaluru because they'll make the traffic problem even worse,’ and so on and so forth,” said Chandrasekhar. “But at the heart of it, I am very, very proud of what our city has accomplished, what our Bengalurueans have done, how welcoming they have been about of great companies and great brands and how they work to make these great brands successful in Bengaluru. And that in my opinion, in the coming decade, Silicon Valley be named the Bangalore of the West.”