U.S. and India Form a Technology Partnership to Counter China

 The United States and India are forming a technology partnership aimed at promoting innovation and increasing competitiveness in the global market. The partnership will focus on the main areas of digital economy, research and innovation, infrastructure, and workforce development. The two nations will specifically be expanding cooperation on advanced weaponry, supercomputing, semiconductors and other high-tech fields. A successful partnership would offset China’s dominance of cutting-edge technologies.

This has been described as a “big foundational piece of an overall strategy to put the entire democratic world in the Indo-Pacific region in a position of strength,” by Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security advisor. One motivation for this was the continued reliance on China for important goods like semiconductors and telecommunications parts, this is thought to have the potential to give China a military advantage in the future and thus the Biden administration has introduced more restrictions on the sale of advanced semiconductor technology to China in recent months.

The U.S. and India are also committed to greatly increase efforts to produce and develop defense technologies together such as jet engines, artillery systems, and armored infantry vehicles. Officials have also agreed to carry out the building of an advanced mobile network in India and look for new cooperation in semiconductor production. These efforts would mainly be aimed at increasing India’s chip research.

The main issue is that most of the decisions to collaborate will have to be made in the private sector where companies will likely be more concerned about the business implications rather than the governmental strategies at play. Many companies have already found it difficult to obtain the factory space and skilled workers needed to move supply chains out of China.

To address these issues both Biden and Modi are working to increase efforts to increase the industrial and innovation bases of the two countries. The key components of this are working through regulatory barriers such as visas for Indian workers in the U.S. and India changing its tax system to attract more manufacturers from foreign nations. The United States would also need to rework the restrictions that have been placed on transferring defense technology outside of the country. 

This collaboration is expected to result in increased investment and job creation for both the U.S. and India. The partnership will provide opportunities for startups to grow and to have better technology and digital infrastructure access in underdeveloped areas as well as increase the number of workers in tech-related fields.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/business/economy/us-india-technology-partnership.html