India’s manufacturing ambitions are moving deeper into the value chain. The opportunity is no longer limited to assembling products or adding factory capacity; it is increasingly about building the technologies, supply chains, skills and industrial capabilities that allow India to compete in strategically important sectors.

At MAKE 2026: India’s Global Manufacturing Era, presented by CNBC-TV18 and the manufacturing platform Zetwerk, our distinguished speakers examined the different dimensions of that challenge-from building a self-reliant clean-energy manufacturing ecosystem and developing a domestic semiconductor value chain to strengthening the productivity, technology and talent that underpin globally competitive manufacturing. Taken together, the sessions offered a view of what it will take for India to move from scale and opportunity to deeper industrial capability.

Zetwerk is a technology-led, asset-light manufacturing platform for industrial and consumer goods in India and globally. It brings together manufacturing capacity across a network of third-party suppliers and its own facilities through a “universal factory”, unified by Zetwerk OS, its proprietary technology backbone. Its customer base spans start-ups and large industrial companies across sectors including utilities, renewables, consumer electronics, artificial intelligence infrastructure, aerospace, space and defence, oil and gas and industrial automation.

Solar Manufacturing: Moving Beyond Module Assembly

India’s clean-energy transition is creating a manufacturing opportunity that extends well beyond solar-panel assembly. In a discussion moderated by Sonal Bhutra, Hardip Singh, COO, Grew Solar; Prashant Mathur, CEO, Saatvik Green Energy; and Harsh Vardhan Govil, COO – Solar Manufacturing, SAEL, examined what it will take to build a more resilient and competitive solar manufacturing ecosystem.

The discussion focused on the need to build greater depth across the solar value chain, including domestic capabilities in cells, wafers, ingots and other upstream components. The role of the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM), policy consistency, manufacturing scale and the ability to compete with China's established cost and capacity advantages were central to the conversation.

The challenge, however, is not simply to create more capacity. Indian manufacturers also have to contend with capital costs, infrastructure requirements and the need for greater investment in R&D. Building the workforce required for a more sophisticated solar industry, strengthening domestic technology capabilities and creating access to green financing will be important to the next phase of growth.

The opportunity is also being reinforced by new sources of demand. AI data centres, electric mobility and commercial and........

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