INITIATIVE ON CRITICAL AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES (iCET) – INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
News: India,
U.S. step up strategic partnership with technology initiative
What's in the news?
● India
and the U.S. launched a program to enhance their strategic partnership with
delegations led by the National Security Advisor (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).
Key takeaways:
● The
two sides announced a set of programs whose aim is to increase the depth and scope of bilateral cooperation in cutting edge
technology, including in the defence sector.
iCET:
● 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.
● 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.
Features:
The
programs include several aspects as follows.
● 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
taskforce to identify opportunities.
● Increasing
space cooperation including human
spaceflight.
Areas of Cooperation:
The
six areas of planned cooperation are
as follows.
Other areas:
● Establishing
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
involvement of the business and academic
communities in India and the U.S., and the initiative’s plan to renew and
capitalize on existing mechanisms rather than replace them.
● 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.