India, US unveil key technology and space initiatives in Modi-Trump meet

Times of Oman

14-02-2025

Washington DC: India and the US launched major initiatives following a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump at the White House, focusing on advancing cooperation in emerging technologies, AI, and civil space.
Key announcements include the US-India TRUST initiative, a roadmap for AI infrastructure, and the INDUS Innovation platform to foster partnerships in defence, space, and energy.
According to the official statement, the leaders announced the launch of the U.S.-India TRUST ("Transforming the Relationship Utilising Strategic Technology") initiative, which will catalyse government-to-government, academia, and private sector collaboration to promote the application of critical and emerging technologies in areas such as defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, biotechnology, energy, and space, while encouraging the use of verified technology vendors and ensuring the protection of sensitive technologies.
This initiative will see the private industries of both countries put forward a US-India Roadmap on Accelerating AI Infrastructure by the end of the year. This roadmap will identify constraints related to financing, building, powering, and connecting large-scale American-origin AI infrastructure in India, with milestones and future actions.
The two countries will also enable industry partnerships and investments in next-generation data centres, cooperation on the development and access to computing and processors for AI, innovations in AI models, and building AI applications to solve societal challenges, while addressing the protections and controls necessary to safeguard these technologies and reduce regulatory barriers.
In another significant development, the two leaders announced the launch of INDUS Innovation, a new innovation bridge modelled after the successful INDUS-X platform, that will advance industry and academic partnerships and foster investments in space, energy, and other emerging technologies to maintain India and US leadership in innovation and to meet the needs of the 21st century. The leaders also reinforced their commitment to the INDUS-X initiative, which facilities partnerships between U.S. and Indian defense companies, investors and universities to produce critical capability for our militaries, and welcomed the next summit in 2025.
The statement noted that the leaders also committed, as part of the TRUST initiative, to build trusted and resilient supply chains, including for semiconductors, critical minerals, advanced materials and pharmaceuticals. As part of this effort, the leaders plan to encourage public and private investments to expand Indian manufacturing capacity, including in the US, for active pharmaceutical ingredients for critical medicines. These investments will create good jobs, diversify vital supply chains, and reduce the risk of life-saving drug shortages in both the United States and India.
Recognising the importance of critical minerals for emerging technologies and advanced manufacturing, India and the US will accelerate collaboration in research and development and promote investment across the entire critical mineral value chain, as well as through the Mineral Security Partnership, of which both the United States and India are members.
The two countries have committed to intensifying efforts to deepen with respect to several aspects of technologies of critical minerals and the leaders announced the launch of the Strategic Mineral Recovery initiative, a new US-India program to recover and process critical minerals (including lithium, cobalt, and rare earths) from heavy industries like aluminum, coal mining and oil and gas.
The statement further noted that the leaders hailed 2025 as a pioneering year for US-India civil space cooperation, with plans for a NASA-ISRO effort through AXIOM to bring the first Indian astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS), and early launch of the joint "NISAR" mission, the first of its kind to systematically map changes to the Earth's surface using dual radars. The leaders called for more collaboration in space exploration, including on long duration human spaceflight missions, spaceflight safety and sharing of expertise and professional exchanges in emerging areas, including planetary protection. The leaders committed to further commercial space collaboration through industry engagements in conventional and emerging areas, such as connectivity, advanced spaceflight, satellite and space launch systems, space sustainability, space tourism and advanced space manufacturing.
The statement also underlined that the leaders underscored the value of deepening ties between the US and Indian scientific research communities, announcing a new partnership between the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Indian Anusandhan National Research Foundation in researching critical and emerging technologies. This partnership builds on ongoing collaboration between the US National Science Foundation and several Indian science agencies to enable joint research in the areas of semiconductors, connected vehicles, machine learning, next-generation telecommunications, intelligent transportation systems, and future biomanufacturing.
The leaders determined that their governments would redouble efforts to address export controls, enhance high-technology commerce, and reduce barriers to technology transfer between the two countries, while ensuring technology security. The leaders also resolved to work together to counter the common challenge of unfair practices in export controls by third parties seeking to exploit the overconcentration of critical supply chains, the statement noted.