UK-India Technology Security Initiative: Here Is What's Happening | Exclusive

British foreign secretary David Lammy visited New Delhi on Wednesday and had bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, and national security adviser Ajit Doval. Both sides welcomed the launch of the UK-India Technology Security Initiative (TSI), spearheaded and agreed upon by the national security advisers (NSAs) of the two countries to expand collaboration in Critical and Emerging Technologies (CET) across priority sectors including telecom, critical minerals, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum, biotech, and advanced materials.

According to officials, the collaboration under TSI will include Government, Private Sector, Academia, and R&D institutions. TSI builds upon the 2030 roadmap between the two countries and is a crucial step to strengthen collaboration in the Science and Technology domain.

After the launch, a fact sheet with a focus on specific technologies and areas of cooperation was also released. The fact sheet provides precise guidance to all stakeholders, especially industry and academia, and will have a deeper impact on the outcomes of collaboration. In order to make the proposed Technology and Security Initiative flexible and at par with changing scenarios of the future, new areas and themes will also be incorporated in the future.

The TSI would be helpful for improving supply chain resilience and also for developing economically feasible and environmentally sustainable extraction technologies for identified critical minerals. The TSI framework will boost research, trade and investment flows between the UK and India in the domains of semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum, etc. The fields of genomics, precision medicine, cell and gene therapy, biotherapeutics, bio-manufacturing, bio-electronics, etc, will get an impetus. The United Kingdom and India will collaborate in the field of next-generation telecommunication technologies, and telecom providers, start-ups, and businesses will explore commercial opportunities in telecom infrastructure.

The TSI will be coordinated and monitored by the NSAs of both countries and a joint review mechanism on a half-yearly basis will be conducted at the deputy NSA level. In order to resolve licence and regulatory issues, a bilateral mechanism for the promotion of trade in Critical and Emerging Technologies (CET) has been included.