27 June 2024

Dissecting the 2024 US-India iCET Joint Factsheet

SATYA S. SAHU

On June 17, the second US-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) meeting took place in New Delhi. The iCET is a collaborative framework established by the United States and India to strengthen cooperation in key technology areas. After the announcement in 2022, the inaugural meeting between top bureaucrats of both nations, chaired by the National Security Advisors, took place in 2023. The recent meeting marks this partnership's second chapter and drives it forward.

The iCET aims to bolster the two countries' economic competitiveness while complementing the innovation ecosystems. The partnership hopes to build interoperability, trust, and confidence between the two nations, which see their interests aligned across various points in recent years. It acknowledges the important role India needs to play in the Indo-Pacific and the advantage it stands to gain from the partnership with the US in this world order. This cooperation at a broader level is happening with other like-minded countries in the form of the Trilateral Technology dialogue with South Korea and QUAD cooperation with Australia and Japan.

The initiative aims to form interconnections in the two countries' industries, academia, and bureaucracies to ease barriers, expedite roadmaps, and drive collaborative innovation through funding, co-development, and co-production. The framework attempts to do this across various critical technology fields.

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