India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden deepened a strategic partnership on the co-development and sharing of key technologies between the two nations, mapping an extensive scheme spanning semiconductors to AI.
In a joint statement, the states noted the partnership reaffirmed a commitment to fostering an accessible and secure technology ecosystem, revealing they also inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the semiconductor supply chain.
The MoU follows a string of investments and incentives by US companies in India, including an $825 million move by Micron Technology to set up a chip plant and a $400 million capital injection by Applied Materials to build an engineering centre.
India and the US expect the MoU will promote “commercial opportunities, research, talent and skill development” in the semiconductor industry.
Taskforces for advanced telecommunications have also been launched, with the countries putting an emphasis on open RAN and 5G/6G technologies.
Public-private partnerships will be led by India’s Bharat 6G Alliance and US Next G Alliance, with the countries teasing plans for open RAN field trials and scaled deployments involving operators and vendors from both countries.
India and the US stressed the need to establish a “trusted network” for telecoms projects and welcomed participation of Indian companies in a US initiative to replace network equipment supplied by Chinese companies.
A number of agreements on critical technologies were also put in place, including research collaborations on cybersecurity and green technologies, quantum computing, space and scientific technologies, and ethical AI.
Consortiums have been established for some of these sectors.
The nations highlighted an investment by internet giant Google in India, citing a $10 billion injection to grow country’s digital economy and an AI research centre that has trained “over 100 Indian languages” to AI models.
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A deepening partnership between the two nations reiterated India’s growing influence on the US technology sector, particularly device manufacturing.
Earlier this month, Google was tipped to follow Apple’s path, as it was considering India for the production of its Pixel smartphones.
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