Rudra Chaudhuri & Konark Bhandari
Introduction
“The mood was great,” is how a senior official described interactions in June 2024 between U.S. and Indian counterparts during the second round of review meetings of the U.S.–India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET).1 The U.S. National Security Advisor (NSA) Jake Sullivan traveled to New Delhi with a notable delegation of officials.
The strategic directive from the White House was clear: India, as a U.S. official put it to us, “is a critical part of the growing complexities in a substantively different geopolitical world.”2 There is an unmistakable imperative on the part of the White House to further deepen strategic ties with India, as also underlined to us by U.S. officials over the last two years. As far as officials are concerned, this is a “good bet.”3 This line of thinking is not new—it can be traced back to the early part of this century when both India and the United States decided to reshape strategic relations.
Yet, two decades ago, India did not have the wide range of strategic capabilities it does now—in space, defense, opportunities in manufacturing critical technologies, assembling and testing emerging technologies, some aspects of artificial intelligence (AI), low-cost and scalable solutions in biotechnologies, and a lot else. These varied competencies, if they can be called that, provide a new basis to further forge ties between these two outsized democracies.
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