India joins US-led Pax Silica initiative to bolster AI, mineral security

India has joined the US-led Pax Silica initiative, expanding cooperation on AI, critical minerals and resilient supply chains as part of a broader effort to strengthen economic security

India on Friday joined the Pax Silica initiative, which is an effort by the US on artificial intelligence (AI), to build reliable supply chain security of critical minerals to reduce dependence on China, and to advance “new economic security consensus among allies and trusted partners” of America.

 

At a special event held on the margins of the India AI Impact Summit here, India became the 12th signatory to the Pax Silica Declaration, which, other than the US, also includes Japan, Australia, the UK, South Korea, Israel, and the Netherlands.

 

At the event, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit India in the next few months. He said that the India-US trade deal is set to be inked soon. Gor also described the Quad coalition as an important grouping for cooperation among its member states. 

 

Pax Silica was launched in December to build a secure, resilient, and innovation-driven supply chain for critical minerals and AI. The Pax Silica Summit was held in Washington on December 12 last year where partner nations signed the Pax Silica Declaration. India was not one of the original signatories.

 

India also signed a joint statement on the "India-US AI Opportunity Partnership” as a bilateral addendum to the Declaration. It stated that India and the US recognise that “the 21st century is likely to be defined by the physical backbone for artificial intelligence — from critical minerals and energy to compute and semiconductor manufacturing”, and they “share the view that the future of AI should be built on a foundation of trusted collaboration, economic security, and free enterprise”.

 

The joint statement added that both sides "express their desire to move beyond the paralysis of fear in favor of the dynamism of AI opportunity to promote innovation and to deploy it for human prosperity”. India and the US share the belief that a significant risk facing the free world is not the advancement of AI, but the failure to lead it, the statement said.

 

The two sides expressed their intent to pursue a global approach to AI that is "unapologetically friendly to entrepreneurship and innovation". The two countries have identified the following shared priorities: promoting pro-innovation regulation, deepening cooperation under the Pax Silica framework to support the supply chains of tomorrow, and allowing the AI revolution to be driven by the creative power of the private sector.

 

The documents were signed by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) Secretary S Krishnan, Gor, and US Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment Jacob Helberg.

 

Union Meity Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who was present at the signing, spoke of the strong potential for India and the US to collaborate on supply chain security, and emphasised that cooperation under Pax Silica would further deepen engagement on critical technologies and supply chain resilience under the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership.

 

Gor said India’s entry into Pax Silica is both strategic and essential, and that India brings deep engineering and manufacturing capabilities, expanding capacity in critical mineral processing, and a strong trust factor. Helberg said Pax Silica partners are building a new architecture that diffuses intelligence, placing the transformative power of AI in people’s hands and unlocking unprecedented possibilities.

 

India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Pax Silica seeks to build secure, resilient, and innovation-driven supply chains for technologies foundational to the AI era, particularly silicon and critical minerals that underpin semiconductors, advanced computing, and other high-technology systems.

 

Alluding to China's export controls on rare earth minerals and related products, but not naming it, Helberg flagged challenges arising out of “massively over-concentrated” supply chains for critical minerals and "threats of economic coercion and blackmail”.

 

Gor said India brings strength to Pax Silica. “Peace doesn't come from hoping adversaries will play fair. We all know they won't. Peace comes through strength. India understands this. India understands strong borders,” he said.

 

“India understands this part of the world. That strength, that sovereignty is exactly what Pax-Silica amplifies. Because here's the truth, strength multiplies when it's connected,” Gor added.

 

Helberg said that for too long “we have allowed the foundations of our economic security to drift. We find ourselves grappling with a global supply chain that is massively over-concentrated”. “We watch as our friends and allies face daily threats of economic coercion and blackmail, and are forced to choose between their sovereignty and their prosperity,” Helberg said.

 

Gor said India's entry into Pax-Silica isn't just symbolic. “It's strategic. It's essential. India is a nation with deep talent, deep enough to rival challengers,” he said.

 

(With PTI inputs)