The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) organised a talk by Amb. Arun Kumar Singh on “An Assessment of the New US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET)” on February 23, 2023. Dr. Arvind Gupta, Director, VIF, chaired the session and made welcome remarks. The event was attended by Dr. Suma Varughese, Director General MED, CoS&CS (MCC) at DRDO, Dr. N. Ranjana, Director, Directorate of Systems and Technology Analysis (DSTA), DRDO, Lt. Gen. Anil Bhatt, ISpA, Air Marshal Surat Singh, Col. Baljinder Singh, USISPF, Dr. C. Raja Mohan, Lt. Gen R.K. Sawhney, Gp. Cap. Naval Jagota and other members of the strategic community. Amb. Kanwal Sibal, Dr. Bhashyam Kasturi, Amb. P.S. Raghavan, Amb. Pankaj Saran, Lt. Gen Anil Ahuja, Prof. K.P. Vijayalakshmi participated virtually. The talk was followed by a discussion and Q&A session.

The talk was focused on the analysis of the US- India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) which was introduced on January 31, 2023 at Washington DC by Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his American counterpart Jake Sullivan. It was underlined during the discussion that there is a growing strategic and political convergence in the India- US relationship. The talk highlighted that the joint statement released by the White House and the Indian Government projected the roadmap for collaboration has included all important CETs including artificial intelligence, cyber, quantum, 6G, space and biotechnology. Since the national security agencies of both the countries are playing the nodal role, it is expected to have more coordination among various stakeholders and better implementation. The talk made an assessment of the prospects and challenges in cooperation between India and the US in these CET domains at the government, academics and industry levels. The deliberation also included the advancements made in India-US defence and technological cooperation since the signing of the Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) in 2012 and based on the recent experiences, what changes will be required in the approach to implement the CET collaborations.