HPE India Managing Director Som Satsangi with made-in-India servers. / Photo:HPE handout

The US-headquartered  infotech major Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has beaten its own schedule to deploy the first products of its high volume range of servers, which were manufactured in India.

Less than 9 months after the company leveraged India’s  Product Linked Incentive (PLI) programme subsidies to shift the manufacture of some of its fast moving servers to the Manesar (Haryana state) plant near Delhi run by Indian contract manufacturer  VVDN, the rollout has been announced.

VVDN  has five  manufacturing plants spread across Manesar and  Coimbatore in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu;  11 engineering centres  across India and its US headquarters in Fremont, California, serving clients in  North America, Europe, India, Vietnam, Korea and Japan.

“We extend our heartfelt appreciation to the government and the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY). Their vision in introducing the Production Linked Incentive programme has been instrumental in encouraging OEMs like us to establish a manufacturing footprint in India,” said Som Satsangi senior vice president and managing director, at HPE India.

Photo_VVDN / Surface Mounted Technology facility in VVDN's Manesar plant.

The India manufacturing is made possible because Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) through Surface Mounted Technology — one of the most technically complex and critical aspects of server manufacturing —can now be done in India.

The HPE release states: “The PCBA capability in India creates significant local value enhancement for the servers beyond just assembly and testing. This further strengthens the company’s ability to serve its government and public sector customers by being a trusted and preferred supplier.”

Puneet Agarwal, CEO, VVDN Technologies: “Our collaboration with HPE is a significant contribution towards India’s goal of becoming a global manufacturing powerhouse. Together, we are establishing advanced manufacturing capabilities in India that reflect our commitment to local expertise and an Atmanirbhar Bharat (‘self-reliant India’).”

HPE plans to manufacture  US$ 1 billion worth of servers in India over the next five years. However  while it does not name the models of these high volume servers, they are likely HPE’s rack mounted ProLiant DL 380 / 385 range.

The VVDN plant is also manufacturing High Performance Computing (HPC) “Rudra” servers  designed by India’s  government-run Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC)  for deployment under the  National Supercomputing Mission.