Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest go to to the United States, which befell at a time when the world is confronting vital geopolitical, financial, technological, and local weather challenges, marked one more milestone within the relationship between the world’s two largest democracies.
At a time of a swift international shift in direction of plurilateral approaches, the go to sought to place into motion the “daring and audacious” commitments that Prime Minister Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden had made to forge some of the defining and consequential bilateral relationships of this century.
A Deep Commitment
While the spotlight of the go to was the Sixth QUAD Leaders’ Summit hosted by President Biden in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, bilateral ties acquired an enormous enhance from key bulletins in areas resembling semiconductors, area, superior telecommunications, synthetic intelligence, quantum, biotechnology, and clear power. These landmark initiatives exhibit a deep dedication in direction of realising the bold objectives of the US-India Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership.
The QUAD, a strategic alliance of India, the United States, Australia, and Japan with a dedication in direction of sustaining a free and an open Indo-Pacific, has developed right into a vital drive in implementing tangible initiatives throughout the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean Region. The summit cemented cooperation throughout varied sectors, together with maritime safety, well being, cyber capabilities, local weather safety, semiconductor provide chains, and catastrophe preparedness. The launch of the QUAD Investors Network, designed to speed up investments in vital and rising applied sciences, coupled with the inaugural assembly of the QUAD Commerce and Industry ministers in coming months, underscores the important position companies are set to play throughout the Quad.
Chipping In
Most notable, nevertheless, is the institution of the primary India-US semiconductor fabrication unit, specializing in superior sensing, communication, and energy electronics. Hailed because the first-ever nationwide safety semiconductor fabrication plant, it can produce chips for army functions, not solely bolstering the availability chain ecosystem but in addition additional cementing important India-US defence ties.
The success and enlargement of the US-India Defense Industrial Cooperation Roadmap by way of India’s deliberate procurement of 31 MQ-9B remotely piloted plane, enhancing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, is one other key results of Prime Minister Modi’s go to. This, together with the institution of a Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul facility for C-130J Super Hercules plane, and initiatives just like the India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X) underscores the deepening defence partnership between the 2 nations, important for addressing present and future international safety challenges.
The Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), launched in 2023 by the 2 international locations, acts as a vital platform guiding accountable technological growth globally and secures our international locations’ know-how provide chains. The latest assembly expanded this strategic cooperation by way of tangible actions, such because the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in funds to help high-impact R&D partnerships between US and Indian universities and analysis establishments within the areas of semiconductors, next-generation communication methods, biotechnology, sustainability, linked autos, and inexperienced applied sciences and clever transportation methods and initiatives round superior supplies, quantum, and synthetic intelligence.
On Clean Energy
The newly unveiled US-India Roadmap to Build Safe and Secure Global Clean Energy Supply Chains, with a dedication to unlock over $1 billion in multilateral financing, represents one other historic alternative for each nations to guide in renewable power transition, power storage, and zero-emission autos, whereas collaborations beneath the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership to speed up the event of provide chains for vital minerals displays a concerted effort in direction of operationalising this power partnership.
Industry throughout each international locations has been taking part in a vital position in operationalising these initiatives. While Indian corporations are looking for entry to investments and applied sciences, American corporations already using hundreds of thousands of Indians are eager to additional dip into the huge Indian expertise pool and the world’s largest market. Prime Minister Modi emphasised the large potential of technological collaboration in his assembly with a few of America’s prime CEOs. This mutual progress can revolutionise the worldwide know-how panorama whereas driving shared India-US prosperity.
Finally, deepening relations with the United States could be central to Prime Minister Modi’s imaginative and prescient to make India a developed nation by 2047. A bipartisan understanding of India’s significance on this planet makes the U.S. an necessary stakeholder and participant in India’s progress story. His newest go to not solely strengthened the Quad, but in addition highlighted the alignment between the 2 nations even because it constructed new avenues and mechanisms of collaboration amongst all stakeholders. As India’s largest buying and selling accomplice, the United States might be instrumental in offering the capital, experience, and market entry required for India to climb the worldwide financial ladder.
(Rahul Sharma is the Managing Director at USIBC, and Aditya Kiran Kaushik is the Senior Director, Digital Economy, Media & Entertainment at USIBC.)
Disclaimer: These are the private opinions of the creator