INITIATIVE ON CRITICAL AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

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Context: India and the U.S launched a programme to enhance their strategic partnership with delegations led by National Security Adviser (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).

Details:

• The two sides announced a set of programmes 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
• 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 programmes 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 task force 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.
• The U.S. also committed to a speedy review of an application from General Electric to produce jet engines in India for India-manufactured Light Combat Aircraft.
• The initiative is a particularly significant milestone in the bilateral relationship, having been announced at the highest level — by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden at the Quad summit in Tokyo in May 2022.
• Biden administration would work with the U.S. Congress to lower barriers to U.S. exports to India of High-Performance Computing and source code.
• 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. Biden administration officials were quick to emphasise, however, that iCET is not just about China.

https://epaper.thehindu.com/ccidist-ws/th/th_delhi/issues/23469/OPS/GOKAQV7I8.1+GE6AQVIPB.1.html