IIT Madras Research Park to Add 1.2 Million Sq Ft in Phase Three Expansion

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras Research Park, India's first university-linked research park, set up two decades ago, is planning to add 1.2 million square feet of new workspace over the next 12 to 18 months. A research park is a campus where companies and start-ups rent space to work close to university researchers and laboratories. The park's Phase Three expansion will span six new buildings, with construction expected to begin this quarter, according to its annual report for the financial year ended March 2026.

The expansion follows the research park reaching 99% occupancy. It added 41 clients during the financial year ended March 2026, up from 32 clients the previous year, taking its total to 192 clients. These include 95 industrial research and development centres, 59 start-ups, 17 Centres of Excellence, three incubators and 18 other organisations. The client mix changed by 20% during the year because of new arrivals, business expansions and exits.

New clients onboarded during the year work in areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, aerospace, sustainability, healthcare and advanced manufacturing. They include the German optics company ZEISS, semiconductor start-up Vyoma Systems, spacetech start-up SatLabs, healthcare start-up ISMO Bio-Photonics, and Coromandel International, part of the Murugappa Group.

During the year, IIT Madras launched a ₹600 crore Unicorn Frontier Fund that plans to invest ₹5 crore to ₹10 crore in start-ups working on defence, climate technology, quantum computing and semiconductors. Working with the Tamil Nadu government, the research park also announced plans for a Centre for Advanced Semiconductor Technologies, intended to bring together chip fabrication, packaging, testing and applied research.

Together with the IIT Madras Incubation Cell, the research park has supported more than 580 ventures with a combined valuation of about $8.5 billion. The wider ecosystem includes more than 250 research laboratories across 17 sectors, which have together created over 13,000 jobs and filed more than 700 patents.