India and United Kingdom (UK) have launched a new ‘Technology Security Initiative’ (TSI) to elevate the strategic partnership between the two countries to the next level.
The UK and India will build a new and enhanced future telecoms partnership in order to collaborate on joint research on future telecoms, focussed on open radio access network (RAN) systems, testbed linkups, telecoms security, spectrum innovation, software and systems architecture.
In addition, it was agreed to expand collaboration in critical and emerging technologies (CET) across priority sectors including telecoms, critical minerals, semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum, biotech and advanced materials. The collaboration under TSI will include government, private sector, academia and research and development (R&D) institutions. Further, TSI builds upon the 2030 road map between the two countries and is a crucial step to strengthen the collaboration in the science and technology domain.
Post the launch, a fact sheet with 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 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.
Additionally, TSI would be helpful for improving supply chain resilience and also for developing economically feasible and environmentally sustainable extraction technologies for identified critical minerals. Moreover, the TSI framework will boost research, trade and investment flows between UK and India in the domain of semiconductors, AI, quantum, etc. UK and India will collaborate in the field of next generation telecommunication technologies and telecom providers, start-ups and businesses would explore commercial opportunities in telecoms infrastructure.
