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3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Feb 20, 2026 05:55 AM IST
PM Narendra Modi with (from left) Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Sarvam AI co-founder Pratyush Kumar at the India AI Impact Summit, in New Delhi Thursday. (PTI)
India and the US are likely to sign the Pax Silica declaration Friday, a month after US ambassador Sergio Gor announced that India would be invited to join the US-led initiative focused on securing AI and tech supply-chains.
US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg is in New Delhi for the India AI Impact Summit.
According to the US State Department, Pax Silica is aimed at bringing “friendly and trusted” countries together to ensure that key technologies are safe, reliable, and not controlled by hostile play.
This strategic initiative, seen as a counter to China’s grip on the global manufacturing supply chain, was launched on December 12, 2025 to “reduce coercive dependencies” and build a “secure, prosperous, and innovation-driven silicon supply chain” — from critical minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and logistics.
At the time of the launch, the US, to the surprise of many here, left India out of the initiative, mentioning “allies” such as Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Israel, United Arab Emirates and Australia. This led to concerns that uncertainty around the trade deal was creating broader differences between the two countries.
Ever since the arrival of Gor in India, there has been considerable dialling down of tensions between the two countries, and the framework for the Indo-US trade deal has been agreed upon.
Delhi’s inclusion in the Pax Silica is an important step towards cementing the partnership in the new frontiers of technology, including AI and semiconductors.
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The initiative, according to the US State Department, will also entail protecting sensitive technologies and critical infrastructure from undue access or control by countries of concern and building trusted technology ecosystems, including Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems, fibre-optic cables, data centres, foundational models and applications. India has had concerns over China’s involvement in its critical infrastructure such as telecom.
India’s entry in Pax Silica comes with considerable investments committed by US companies in Indian AI infrastructure.
Overall, this is expected to power India’s late-start and growth in the semiconductor mission and the AI race. Sources said the presence of top American CEOs and founders at the AI summit, including Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman, is an indication of Delhi’s value in the overall AI and semiconductor landscape.
Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More
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