New Delhi: India and the US Monday launched a new strategic semiconductors partnership to co-develop semiconductor design and manufacturing process for precision guided ammunition. They also agreed to co-invest in a lithium resource project in South America and a rare earths deposit in Africa, to help promote India’s “vital role” in the Mineral Security Partnership (MSP).
These decisions were taken at the second meeting of the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), led by Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and his American counterpart Jake Sullivan in New Delhi.
According to a joint fact-sheet, the two delegations agreed on the launching of a new “strategic semiconductor partnership” between US firm General Atomics and 3rdiTech — a government of India-recognised startup — to co-develop semiconductor design and manufacturing processes for “precision-guided ammunition” and other electronics platforms used for national security.
India joined the MSP — a US-led alliance of 14 developed countries and the European Union (EU) — in June 2023. The MSP was announced in June 2022 to secure critical minerals supply chains. The partnership includes key partners of the US such as Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, the UK and the EU.
India, which currently imports all of its lithium, earlier this year through a state-owned firm announced a $24 million lithium exploration project for five blocks in Argentina. Lithium is a key resource for the growing electric vehicle (EV) industry.
iCET was launched by US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2022 on the sidelines of the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Tokyo. Since then the two respective NSAs have pushed to engage in the areas of identified collaboration. In June 2023, Sullivan travelled to New Delhi and held a meeting on iCET with Doval.
In December 2023, US Deputy NSA Jonathan Finer led a delegation to India and met with his Indian counterpart Vikram Misri for a mid-term review on iCET.
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Global Challenges Institute, space and telecommunications co-operation
Both Washington D.C. and New Delhi agreed to unlock a “combined $90 million+” in government funding over the next five years for the India-US Global Challenges Institute. The aim of this funding is to forge high-impact university and research partnerships between American and Indian institutions in the areas of semiconductor technology and manufacturing, agriculture and food security, clean energy, pandemic preparedness and other critical and emerging technologies.
Apart from this, the two sides agreed to work together to secure a carrier for a joint ISRO-NASA mission to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). This would be the first such joint mission between the two.
Both the delegations also agreed to launch a partnership between the US Space Force — the space service branch of the American armed forces — and Indian startups such as 114ai and 3rdiTech. The partnership would include advancing space situational awareness, infra-red sensor semiconductor manufacturing and data fusion technologies.
The fact-sheet also pointed out that the two NSAs took note of the recent finalisation of the India-US Open RAN Acceleration Roadmap and ongoing collaboration by the 5G and 6G research and development (R&D) Task Force.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)