India, US defence expo focused on securing supply chains in critical sectors critical sectors
According to the US Department of Defence (DoD), Indian and US defence officials and business people have focused on partnering in space and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at a virtual expo.
On Monday the Second Defense Technology and Trade Initiative Industry Collaboration Forum (DICF) Virtual Expo was held. The expo was held in partnership with the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum and the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers.
The expo was co-chaired by India’s Joint Secretary for Defence Industries, Anurag Bajpai, and the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Industrial Policy, Jesse Salazar.
To facilitate deeper cooperation in the defence industry, both countries held a summit in late September on the Industrial Security Agreement (ISA).
The DoD Spokesperson Jessica Maxwell said that the expo focused on securing supply chains in critical sectors such as semiconductors and partnering for innovation in emerging domains, such as AI and space.
Maxwell said: “The DICF, a cornerstone of the US-India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), aims to deepen industrial cooperation between the US and India by identifying opportunities to jointly research, develop, and produce warfighting capabilities.”
Salazar was joined in the discussion by Michael Vaccaro, the DoD acting Executive Director for International Cooperation, and senior executives from US and Indian companies.
As India and the US strengthen their strategic cooperation, DTTI has assumed an important role, which was reiterated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden at their Washington summit in September.
In their joint statement after their meeting, they called upon the government and private stakeholders “to use the existing ecosystems of innovation and entrepreneurship in defence industries for co-development, co-production and expanding mutual defence trade”.
Modi and Biden mentioned the recent project to co-develop air-launched unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) under the DTTI and said they “encouraged more such efforts”.
Modi has said that under the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat‘ initiative of boosting domestic industries he wants to make India a hub of defence manufacturing and export and for this US collaboration could play a key role.
Bajpai and David Paul Bagnati, the Assistant Director for Defence Technology Security Administration, led the meeting to develop a protocol for the exchange of classified information between the defence industries of both nations.
[With Inputs from IANS]
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