Wipro Infrastructure Engineering, industrial manufacturer, and Wipro Electronic Materials, its new PCB materials arm, have announced a ₹500 crore ($57.6 million) investment to set up a copper-clad laminate (CCL) and prepreg facility in Karnataka, targeting production start in 2026 and output of more than six million sheets a year. The unit is expected to create about 350 jobs and, according to the company, will be India’s first domestic source of CCL—a base material that India currently imports in full.   
Investment, Capacity and Timeline
WIN said it has secured land near Doddaballapur, on the outskirts of Bengaluru, with commissioning slated for next year. The plant will manufacture high-performance CCL and matching prepregs for multilayer printed circuit boards used across consumer electronics, automotive, telecoms and data-centre infrastructure. At today’s exchange rate—around ₹86.8 per US$—the ₹500 crore spend equates to roughly $57.6 million.
Why It Matters for India’s Electronics Supply Chain
India’s PCB fabricators rely entirely on imported laminates from East Asian producers, a bottleneck that lengthens lead times and exposes manufacturers to currency swings and logistics risk. WIN’s division aims to localise this critical input and support policy goals to deepen the electronics value chain. New government support under component-focused production-linked incentives and broader electronics PLI programmes is designed to crowd in private investment and reduce import dependence for core inputs.
Market Impact and Pricing
Domestic CCL output would slot into a global market still dominated by suppliers in China and Taiwan and measured in the mid-teens of billions of dollars annually. For Indian PCB makers, local sourcing could pare freight costs and working capital while improving qualification responsiveness for new designs. Feedstock costs will matter: LME three-month copper—embedded in CCL via foil—traded near $9,835 per tonne on July 28, keeping pressure on materials margins even as localisation trims logistics overheads.
Industry Context and Applications
The push comes amid rising electronics demand tied to AI infrastructure and data-centre build-outs, where high-frequency PCB materials and tighter tolerances are increasingly required. WIN says the facility will be a “first-of-its-kind investment in India’s electronics manufacturing landscape,” aimed at strengthening supply-chain resilience by giving domestic manufacturers reliable access to high-quality base materials. The company adds that establishing a local CCL source supports India’s ambition to move up the electronics technology stack.
Company Background and Market Context
Wipro Infrastructure Engineering is a unit of Wipro Enterprises with operations spanning hydraulics, aerospace components and additive manufacturing. The new electronic materials division marks its entry into upstream PCB inputs. India’s policy backdrop has shifted in favour of components, with the Union Cabinet in March approving a PLI scheme for electronic components and recent government data highlighting rising investment and output across electronics under PLI 2.0 for IT hardware. Against that backdrop, a domestically integrated CCL facility would fill a persistent gap in India’s PCB ecosystem.
Copper is the key metal in CCL, laminated as foil onto fibre-reinforced substrates. Prices have hovered around $9,800–$9,900 per tonne on the LME in late July, supported by energy-transition demand but tempered by uneven global manufacturing and tariff-related trade frictions that have distorted regional markets. For Indian producers, localising copper-intensive inputs can mitigate currency and freight volatility even when underlying copper prices are firm.
