(Bloomberg) -- The UK will increase its collaboration with India in critical and emerging technologies as the two nations seek to strengthen bilateral ties.
The UK and India will launch a Technology Security Initiative, led by their respective National Security Advisers, to cooperate more in the areas of high tech, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement late Wednesday.
The announcement came during a two-day visit by UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy to India, where he met his counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The tech security initiative identifies several areas of collaboration: telecommunications, critical minerals, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum, biotechnology and healthtech, and advanced minerals.
The two countries are planning to launch a joint research program on future telecoms later this year, according to the statement. In the critical minerals sector, the two countries pledged to boost research and exploration in rare earth elements and improve the resilience of supply chains in the sector.
India has been aggressively pursuing a plan to build manufacturing plants for semiconductors in the country. Under the joint India-UK initiative, there will be “academic and industrial R&D collaboration, including in chip design and IP, compound semiconductors, advanced packaging and innovative system,” the statement said.
During his meeting with Modi, Lammy also discussed progress on a UK-India free trade agreement currently under negotiation. Earlier this month, Trade Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters India is ”deeply committed” to a trade agreement with the UK and would like to grow trade between the two countries to $100 billion by 2030.
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