India, US launch iCET, elevate strategic partnership: White House

White House

India and the United States jointly launched the initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology or iCET, the White House said. The launch happened after National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met US' National Security Advisor
Jake Sullivan.

"We are committed to fostering an open, accessible, and secure technology ecosystem, based on mutual trust and confidence, that will reinforce our democratic values and democratic institutions," the White House said in a statement.

Earlier last year in May, US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in Tokyo and announced that the two countries will elevate and expand the strategic technology partnership and defense industrial cooperation between the governments, businesses, and academic institutions of the two countries.

"The United States and India affirm that the ways in which technology is designed, developed, governed, and used should be shaped by our shared democratic values and respect for universal human rights. We are committed to fostering an open, accessible, and secure technology ecosystem, based on mutual trust and confidence, that will reinforce our democratic values and democratic institutions," the White House said.

Doval and Sullivan were joined by high level officials from both sides in the meeting, a report by the news agency Asian News International (ANI) said.

The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Director of the National Science Foundation, Executive Secretary of the National Space Council, and senior officials from the Department of State, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, and National Security Council  were part of the US delegation according to ANI's report.

The Indian delegation included Ambassador of India to the United States, the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Secretary of the Department of Telecommunications, Scientific Advisor to the Defense Minister, Director General of the Defence Research and Development Organization,ANI reported.

Senior officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the National Security Council Secretariat also participated in the talks.

"This is about taking those (existing) kinds of efforts to a different level and having it come from first and foremost from President Biden and Prime Minister Modi, from the leader level directly down to their national security advisors helps to energise our respective bureaucracies and establishments that this is a serious business and that we need to ensure that we are eliminating obstacles and barriers that stood in our way in the past and moving forward because a strategic decision that both countries have decided is for mutual benefit, really for the benefit of the world," a senior administration official told a group of Indian reporters after the conclusion of the inaugural session of the iCET dialogue.

Following the dialogue, a senior administration official said, they expect an intensified pace of high-level engagements along the way.

One of the categories under the iCET's high level engagements focuses on strengthening innovation ecosystems in both India and the US via a new invitation arrangement for a partnership between the National Science Foundation and the Indian science agencies to expand collaboration.

The principal Scientific Adviser of India, the National Science Foundation director at the White House co-signed this partnership, according to reports.

The arrangement also announced the establishment of the joint Indo-US Quantum Coordination mechanisms that will facilitate greater collaboration between consortium of leading researchers and quantum industry players in the United States with their counterparts in India.

The two countries also announced a new public-private dialogue on advanced telecom and related regulation, as well as new cooperation on research and development and technologies, the official said.

The next iCET meeting will take place in New Delhi in late 2023, ANI said.