India on Friday joined the Pax Silica framework, a U.S.-led effort to create a secure supply chain for critical technologies that would be immune to meddling from China. India’s membership had been in doubt due to trade tensions with the United States under President Donald Trump.
“Pax Silica will be a group of nations that believe technology should empower free people and free markets. India’s entry into Pax Silica isn’t just symbolic. It’s strategic, it’s essential,” U.S. Ambassador Sergio Gor said at the signing ceremony in New Delhi for India’s entry into the agreement.
“From the trade deal to Pax Silica to defense cooperation, the potential for our two nations to work together is truly limitless,” he said.
“Peace doesn’t come from hoping adversaries will play fair. We all know they won’t. Peace comes through strength,” said Gor. “That strength, sovereignty, is exactly what Pax Silica amplifies.”
The Pax Silica Declaration issued by the U.S. State Department called on member nations to contribute to a “reliable supply chain” for advanced technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI).
“We recognize that the technological revolution in AI is accelerating, increasingly reorganizing the world economy, and reshaping global supply chains,” the declaration said.
Signatories to Pax Silica agree to a partnership on numerous links in the global supply chain, including “software applications and platforms, frontier foundation models, information connectivity and network infrastructure, compute and semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, transportation logistics, minerals refining and processing, and energy.”
India on Friday added its signature to those of Australia, Greece, Israel, Japan, Qatar, South Korea, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom, and the United States. Pax Silica also has some “non-signatory participants,” including the nations of Canada, the Netherlands, and Taiwan, plus the European Union (EU) and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has 38 member states.
The path for India joining Pax Silica was evidently smoothed by the trade agreement announced in early February by President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Among other features, the deal lowered U.S. tariffs on India from 25 percent to 18 percent, and removed the 25 percent additional punitive tariff Trump imposed on India for buying Russian oil.
According to Ambassador Gor, the final version of that agreement will be signed “very soon.”
“The reality is there’s tens of thousands of points. We’re not dealing with a small country. This is one of the biggest economies. And so, we’re thrilled that the interim deal is done. We have a few tweaking points that are left to do, but it’s done. So, the signing will happen soon,” Gor said on Friday.
Indian technology minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw said at the signing ceremony on the sidelines of India’s AI summit that Pax Silica would “further deepen engagement on critical technologies and supply chain resilience” between the United States and India, since cooperation on advanced technology is a pillar of the India-U.S. Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership.
Vaishnaw said the agreement would be a boon to India’s semiconductor industry, with the first of ten massive new chip factories soon to begin commercial production.
“The country has a direction, a clear goal, and we have to take global leadership in the semiconductor industry and the electronics industry,” he said.
India Today said Pax Silica was a sign that India is ready to go all-in on technology and economic cooperation with the United States, and has implicitly accepted President Trump’s arguments against prolonging the Ukraine war by purchasing Russian oil — but India’s decision not to fully join Trump’s Board of Peace marks the boundaries of the shared vision between New Delhi and Washington.
“India’s move probably reflects what it wants and needs. Technology and economic security align with India’s national interest. Personality-centric diplomatic experiments, like the one to end the Gaza War, might not. Trump sees the Gaza peace process as a way to strengthen his claim over the Nobel Peace Prize,” said India Today.
“This is India’s balancing act. Embrace tech security. Avoid personality-based peace architecture that might weaken established global institutions like the United Nations,” the article concluded.