HCLTech has announced a new partnership with France-based Dolphin Semiconductor to co-develop a generation of energy-efficient chips tailored for IoT devices, data centre workloads, and increasingly complex connected environments. As enterprises feel the strain of rising energy costs, growing sustainability requirements, and heavier AI-driven compute demands, this collaboration directly targets one of the industry’s fastest-growing pain points: lowering power consumption without sacrificing performance.
The partnership integrates Dolphin Semiconductor’s low-power mixed-signal IP portfolio with HCLTech’s semiconductor engineering, SoC design, and system development capabilities. For HCLTech, India’s third-largest IT services firm, this deal continues its broader expansion into chip engineering and semiconductor R&D, an area where the company has deepened investments over the past two years.
A Joint Push Toward High-Efficiency Computing
The collaboration focuses on building scalable, high-efficiency SoCs that can support a wide range of workloads — from industrial IoT sensors and consumer devices to AI inference engines at the edge and in modern data centres. Dolphin’s low-power IP blocks will be embedded into HCLTech’s SoC workflows to create platforms optimized for energy savings, thermal stability, and sustained performance.
According to Dolphin Semiconductor’s EVP of Engineering, Pierre-Marie Dell’Accio, the partnership expands the reach of the company’s low-power IP into new markets and accelerates adoption among global and Indian device makers. He noted that the collaboration is designed to push the boundaries of energy-efficient computing in both constrained environments and high-density compute ecosystems.
HCLTech’s corporate vice president Hari Sadarahalli said the partnership comes at a decisive moment, as AI workloads grow more intensive and sustainability becomes a top-level priority for enterprise technology leaders. He emphasized that the collaboration will allow HCLTech to support clients with solutions that blend performance, efficiency, and environmental responsibility.
Aligning with India’s Semiconductor Ambitions
The partnership also complements India’s broader semiconductor roadmap, where domestic companies are increasingly seeking partnerships with global IP providers and chip design leaders. Over the past year, HCLTech has strengthened alliances across the semiconductor value chain, including AMD, Arm, and CAST, to enhance its chip design and verification capabilities.
The collaboration with Dolphin Semiconductor has the potential to support India’s ambitions to become a competitive player in intelligent semiconductor design — especially in domains such as power management, automotive electronics, industrial automation, and AI-enabled infrastructure.
Energy Efficiency Becomes a Competitive Differentiator
As energy costs surge and data centres move toward sustainability-linked metrics, chip efficiency has become a defining element of competitiveness. Enterprises are now prioritizing silicon architectures that can handle intensive AI inference, high-density edge deployments, and continuous sensor workloads — all while keeping power budgets under control.
By aligning their strengths, HCLTech and Dolphin Semiconductor aim to deliver SoCs built for this new performance-per-watt paradigm, accelerating energy-efficient computing across interconnected industries.
