The world’s biggest bet on India

If you want to glimpse the frontier of Indian capitalism, take a trip to Tamil Nadu in the south of the country. New factories with solar panels on their roofs lie on a vast 550-acre (220-hectare) site. Inside, it is reported, Tata is making components for the latest iPhones on behalf of Apple—and in the process finally connecting India to the world’s most sophisticated supply chain, which used to be anchored to China.

The project is not a one-off. It is part of a new and staggering $90bn investment surge by India’s biggest business that is repositioning itself towards its home market and away from its 30-year strategy of fanning out globally. Tata’s ambition to create electronics factories and semiconductor fabs in India could transform its economy. “I firmly believe that this is going to be India’s decade,” says Natarajan Chandrasekaran, who runs the holding company, Tata Sons, which oversees the group.