The semiconductor industry is sweeping the globe.

Not long ago, India's leading conglomerate, "Tata Group," announced that it will invest $90 billion over the next five years to support the localization of chips.

In addition to chips, the Tata Group is also preparing to negotiate the acquisition of an iPhone manufacturing plant in India and the development of a one-stop super app for new energy vehicles, among other projects. It seems ready to roll up its sleeves and get to work with vigor.

What is the background of such a Tata Group?

There is a joke in South Korea that no South Korean can live without three things: taxes, death, and Samsung.

In fact, if you replace South Korea with India and Samsung with Tata, the joke still holds true.

As a conglomerate with over 100 companies, including more than 30 listed ones, the Tata Group is a "giant with no friends" in India.

The entrepreneurial history of this group is quite legendary.Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata Group, originated from a minority ethnic group in India—the Parsis, a community that may number less than 100,000 people.

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India in the 19th century was under British colonial rule.

The status of being a minority ethnicity provided Jamsetji, who traveled extensively with his father from the age of 14, with a unique entrepreneurial advantage during this period.

After all, the British were convinced that in the racially strict India, how much of a stir could a businessman from a community with a small population base create?

In 1868, after witnessing the vast commercial system of the British colonizers, Jamsetji established his own export company in Mumbai, and used the profits to create a textile mill, which was the precursor to the Tata Group.

Jamsetji was a nationalist businessman with a strong sense of情怀, and he believed that for India to prosper, it must have its own steel industry.

Thus, in 1901, Jamsetji founded the first steel mill in India.

In addition to this, Jamsetji also ventured into fields such as hydroelectric power engineering. The first hydroelectric power station in India was created by him, and the famous Taj Palace Hotel is also one of his masterpieces.

In 1904, Jamsetji passed away. According to his will, the Tata Group was inherited by his two sons.

Under their management, the Tata Group further expanded, with the brothers constructing India's first cement factory, establishing India's first indigenous insurance company, and founding a university with substantial scholarships to support aspiring Indian youth to study in Europe.After the outbreak of World War I, due to the war's demand for steel, the "Tata Steel Company" taken over by the two brothers accounted for more than 50% of the Indian market's annual steel production, thus becoming one of the world's largest steel mills at that time.

In 1932, Jamsetji's eldest son passed away. Since his younger son had predeceased him, and both left no heirs, the family's heavy responsibility eventually fell upon Jamsetji's great-nephew, Jehangir Tata.

This proved to be a wise appointment.

From taking the helm of the Tata Group in 1938 to his retirement in 1988, Jehangir Tata used fifty years to complete the rapid expansion of the Tata Group.

As one of the earliest pilots in India, Jehangir leveraged his personal connections to pioneer airmail services and gradually expanded it into "Tata Airlines."

In 1946, "Tata Airlines" successfully went public and was renamed "Air India," becoming the first listed company under the Tata Group.

Over the following decades, under Jehangir's leadership, the Tata Group ventured into mining, metallurgy, machinery, chemicals, oil exploration, and power sectors. The number of subsidiaries under the group also expanded from 14 when Jehangir took over to 95.

In 1991, Jehangir Tata's nephew, Ratan Tata, succeeded as the chairman, becoming the fourth generation leader of the family.

At this time, almost all countries around the world, including India, were caught in an economic crisis. The century-old Tata Group, inevitably, also developed large enterprise maladies such as bureaucracy and inefficiency.

Ratan, who holds dual degrees from Cornell University and Harvard University, is exceptionally intelligent and outstanding in his abilities.At the beginning of his tenure, he implemented a transformative reform of the group: more than 100 subsidiaries were restructured into seven divisions, establishing their own management framework, while also carrying out mergers and acquisitions externally.

By the time Ratan Tata temporarily retired in 2011, hundreds of overseas companies had been acquired by Tata Group and its subsidiaries, with overseas revenue accounting for more than 50%, making it one of the top globalized groups.

During his tenure, Ratan consistently practiced the operation of de-familization, establishing a modern corporate system. He also actively sought a non-family member to succeed him at Tata Group, but the outcome was not entirely satisfactory.

After a series of comparisons and screenings, Ratan finally decided in 2011 to appoint Cyrus Mistry, a big shot in the Indian construction industry, as the Chairman of Tata Group.

However, in September 2022, Cyrus Mistry tragically passed away in a car accident at the age of 54.

Following the accident, various sectors in India issued statements of mourning, and Indian Prime Minister Modi even declared that Cyrus Mistry's death was a loss to Indian industry and commerce.

Despite the power struggles that have unfolded within the upper echelons of Tata Group since then, no one can conceal its brilliance.

To this day, Tata Group's business spans more than 100 countries and regions worldwide, with a total workforce of over 800,000 people, and its business covers almost all aspects of Indian people's livelihoods.

Almost every Indian person, from birth to death, is constantly using products under Tata Group, and even when Xiaomi entered India, it also accepted personal investment from Ratan Tata.

In 2022, Tata Group's operating income reached 110 billion US dollars, ranking first among Indian corporate groups.In the pursuit of technology, the Tata Group is also committed to developing philanthropy.

There is an unwritten convention in the Tata family that after a member passes away, their assets are donated to the charitable foundation established by the group.

As the initial donor and founder of the group, Jamsetji Tata has become the highest-value philanthropist globally in the past century with a donation of 670 billion yuan, far exceeding Bill Gates' donation of 48 billion yuan.

Helping others, serving society, and achieving oneself, business is the greatest charity of a society.

This may be the key to the Tata Group's legacy to this day.