New Delhi: “The mood was great” over the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), but is the partnership really delivering and what’s next?
This is the question a new think tank study has tried to answer. The report by Carnegie India, among other key takeaways, advises against over-institutionalising the agreement and recommends deeper cooperation with like-minded partners.
The report, titled ‘The U.S.–India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) from 2022 to 2025: Assessment, Learnings, and the Way Forward’, provides a comprehensive overview of the agreement first launched in 2022 to deepen India-US cooperation in critical and emerging technologies.
It concludes that in the iCET’s priority areas — space, defence, semiconductors, export controls, artificial intelligence (AI), and biotechnology — the agreement has been successful.
“At the end of January 2025, the iCET would have formally been in existence for three years. Perhaps it has largely done what it has set out to do: build bridges across a wide range of strategic technology ecosystems that will likely outlast both builders and architects alike,” authors, Rudra Chaudhuri, director of Carnegie India, and Konark Bhandari, a fellow, say in the study.
In their own words, the framework announced that in May 2022 the joint India and US effort was “to elevate and expand our strategic technology partnership and defence industrial cooperation between the governments, businesses, and academic institutions of our two countries”.
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What’s next?
The study answers this question keeping in mind the broader context of the iCET agreement, which is the diversification of the supply chains away from China in light of its trade war with the US.
In the semiconductor section, therefore, it recommends “ensuring cyber-resiliency and the ability to create a trusted corridor”. This is also important for India as it builds its semiconductor industry.
It also further recommends “investments in the future of packaging techniques” and research into compound semiconductors since the “compound annual growth rate for this sub-segment is also forecasted to outpace the growth of the broader semiconductor market”.
Here, it also looks into the argument that India’s economic realities put it at a disadvantage in the semiconductor supply chain and that Southeast Asian countries, such as Malaysia and Vietnam, might be better placed.
The authors argue this is a “geo-economic bet” for India, particularly since a number of semiconductor firms in these Southeast Asian countries are actually Chinese firms that relocated in light of the US-China trade war.
“What is needed globally is greater coordination on incentive schemes and streamlining a workable and safe supply chain amongst like-minded partners. A trilateral arrangement for coordination between South Korea, the United States, and India under the iCET should be utilised more forcefully to this end,” the report added.
Under export controls, defence and space priorities, the report’s key recommendation was deregulation. “The fact that India has been able to secure the relevant congressional waivers for the GEF414 jet engine in such circumstances is a huge confidence-building measure when it comes to prospects regarding future tech transfer—a fact that should guide any future discussion on the topic,” it noted.
On the biotechnology front, it said the various efforts in the two countries were disjointed and, perhaps, it would benefit from the development of Bio-X, an “innovation bridge” similar to the India-United States Defence Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS X).
The report also comes against the backdrop of the upcoming US presidential elections on 5 November, which could bring a change in the administration and therefore have an impact on the future of iCET.
According to the report, treating iCET like a framework has allowed for a “nimbleness” that would not have been possible had it been an agreement in the traditional sense.
However, it added that not creating some kind of structure could also prove detrimental — a particularly relevant observation should it change from Biden-Harris to a Trump presidency.
On that front, it wondered if “as a new president takes office in the United States, would it be worth thinking of the iCET as a three-year incubator that has prepared the groundwork for the next stage of US–India strategic ties, either bilaterally or perhaps with other like-minded partners and alignments”.
Furthermore, with a set of countries “knocking on India’s doors for similar arrangements”, the report also encouraged deeper cooperation with like-minded partners.
For India, the key, it said, was in “making the best of the opportunities at hand to support its own economic development, widening its manufacturing base, and placing itself as an important hub for different technologies serving several different areas of military and industrial advancement”.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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