India, U.S. step up strategic partnership with technology initiative

The initiative comes at a time when the U.S. is seeking to out-compete China in critical technologies and tighten the screws on China’s semiconductor industry

India and the U.S., on Tuesday, launched a program to enhance their strategic partnership with delegations led by the National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and his American counterpart, Jake Sullivan, meeting in Washington for the inaugural dialogue of the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET).

The two sides announced a set of programs whose aim is to increase the depth and scope of bilateral cooperation in cutting edge technology, including in the defence sector.

The iCET seeks to build supply chains which increase co-production and co-development between the countries and increase linkages between the countries’ start-up ecosystems, both governments said in their statements describing the dialogue.

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A White House ‘fact sheet’ released after the meeting highlighted six areas of planned cooperation: strengthening innovation ecosystems, defence innovation and technology cooperation, resilient semiconductor supply chains, space, STEM talent and next generation telecommunications.

The programs include a Research Agency Partnership between the U.S. National Science Foundation and Indian science agencies; a mechanism to cooperate on quantum computing that will also involve academia and industry; developing a new defence industrial cooperation roadmap; supporting the development of semiconductors in India, including by setting up a taskforce to identify opportunities; and increasing space cooperation including human spaceflight.

Also announced was a private-public dialogue to further 5G/6G cooperation and the adoption of Open RAN (technology to connect phones to each other and to the internet) in India.