Last May, the United States and India announced the “Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology” (iCET), aimed at expanding the countries’ partnerships in strategic technologies and defense industries across the public and private sectors. iCET met for the first time this week at the White House, with the countries – led by their respective National Security Advisors – agreeing to launch a series of bilateral initiatives and to “welcome new cooperation” to expand their technology partnerships across a number of areas. Among these the bullet points: increased collaboration on high-performance computing.

The HPC-relevant portion, per the White House statement: the two nations have agreed to “[promote] collaboration on High Performance Computing (HPC), including by working with Congress to lower barriers to U.S. exports to India of HPC technology and source code.” As reported by the Financial Times, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan remarked that legacy technology transfer restrictions that limited India’s access to these technologies “made sense in their time, but make less sense in the year 2023.”

The U.S. and India further agreed to sign a new implementation agreement for a partnership between the National Science Foundation and analogous Indian scientific agencies; that partnership will cover areas like AI and quantum technologies.

“Through the creation of these opportunities, we are emphasizing to the science and technology communities and the world that our governments are serious about breaking down barriers and facilitating collaboration,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “We look forward to this implementation arrangement, which will open up new vistas for strategic collaborations at speed and scale and leverage the strong scientific and cultural connections between the U.S. and India.”

That isn’t all on the quantum and AI fronts, either: the countries will also establish a joint Quantum Coordination Mechanism that includes industry, government and academic representatives; they will further work to “develop common standards and benchmarks for trustworthy AI,” the White House fact sheet reads, “ensuring that these standards and benchmarks are aligned with democratic values.”

Another large portion is devoted to the semiconductor supply chain, a topic of increasing concern amid tensions over Taiwan and supply chain disruptions during Covid-19. In the semiconductor space, per the fact sheet, the two countries are agreeing to “support the design of a semiconductor design, manufacturing and fabrication ecosystem in India” and “encourage the development of joint ventures and technology partnerships on mature technology nodes and packaging in India.” To that end, a task force – organized by the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association and the India Electronics Semiconductor Association – has been tasked with developing a readiness assessment for near-term industry opportunities and longer-term strategic development.

The ambitious iCET meeting outcomes reflect an increased U.S. push toward “friendshoring,” a middle ground between onshoring and offshoring that describes the cultivation of critical industries in friendly countries. The U.S. is also keen to cultivate stronger ties with India, which has, for instance, remained neutral on the issue of the war in Ukraine.

The overarching context of the iCET meeting, of course, is clear: increasing Western concern over reliance on China-based factories and industries. In the past year, both the U.S. and the European Union have passed major legislation aimed at fostering sovereign semiconductor ecosystems and decreasing reliance on China – moves that sparked some criticism last week at the World Economic Forum last week in Davos, where some derided the legislation as unrealistic.

Still, Western allies are clearly intent on battening down the hatches: just a few days ago, the New York Times reported that the Netherlands and Japan are joining the U.S. in restricting shipments of semiconductor manufacturing technology to China. The move, while not publicly announced, is the latest in a multi-year U.S. effort to make it more difficult for China to manufacture cutting-edge chips, an effort ostensibly aimed at limiting the use of such technologies to modernize China’s military.

According to the White House, the next iCET meeting will be held in New Delhi later this year.