WASHINGTON– The United States said India remains a “highly strategic potential partner” on supply chain security and advanced technologies, despite New Delhi not participating in the inaugural Pax Silica Summit, a new U.S.-led initiative aimed at strengthening the global silicon and semiconductor supply chain.
Addressing speculation that India’s absence reflected political or trade tensions, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg said such assumptions were incorrect and misplaced.
“So, my understanding is that there was a lot of speculation behind India not participating in the Pax Silica Summit,” Helberg told reporters at a news conference organized by the Foreign Press Centre. “I want to be clear that the conversations between the United States and India pertaining to trade arrangements are a completely separate and parallel track to our discussions on supply chain security. We are not conflating those two things.”
Helberg emphasized that Washington continues to view India as an important long-term partner in securing critical supply chains. “We view India as a highly strategic potential partner on supply chain security-related efforts, and we welcome the opportunity to engage with them,” he said.
Launched last week, the Pax Silica initiative brings together an initial group of countries closely tied to semiconductor manufacturing and advanced technology supply chains, including Singapore, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The effort is designed to reduce single points of failure in global supply chains that support industries ranging from smartphones and automobiles to artificial intelligence.
Helberg said the initiative fits within a broader U.S. economic security strategy built around four pillars: rebalancing trade, stabilizing conflict zones, reindustrializing the United States, and securing supply chains.
“And so we launched a flagship initiative called Pax Silica that aims at securing the silicon supply chain, which is the lifeblood of cutting-edge technologies, from cars to the smartphone industry and artificial intelligence,” he said.
On India specifically, Helberg said engagement with New Delhi remains active and ongoing. “I am in nearly daily communication with our interlocutors in Delhi,” he said, adding that the U.S. is “actively determining ways of actually deepening that collaboration quickly.”
He also pointed to upcoming high-level engagement, noting that he plans to attend the India AI Impact Summit in February. “This will provide us an opportunity to meet in person and hopefully determine some tangible milestones,” Helberg said.
According to Helberg, Washington intends to “very much deepen our bilateral collaboration between the United States and India on economic security matters,” and Indian participation in future Pax Silica-related efforts remains possible.
Earlier in the briefing, Helberg explained that the initial group of Pax Silica countries was deliberately limited to those forming the core of semiconductor manufacturing, such as Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the Netherlands, before expanding further down the supply chain to areas such as critical minerals.
Unlike earlier initiatives such as the Mineral Security Partnership, Pax Silica is focused on the supply side rather than buyers, Helberg said. “It is a supply-side strategy that allows us to create channels of communication with the companies responsible for making and operating the global supply chain,” he said.
Describing the Pax Silica Summit and declaration as historic, Helberg said it marked the first time countries had organized collectively around compute, silica, and minerals as shared strategic assets. “We believe that the declaration reflects a new foreign policy consensus that economic security is national security,” he said.
The push comes amid intensifying global competition over semiconductors and artificial intelligence, sectors increasingly seen as central to both economic growth and national security.
India, which has introduced incentive programs to build a domestic semiconductor ecosystem and has positioned itself as a trusted technology partner, continues to feature prominently in U.S. strategic thinking. In recent years, Washington and New Delhi have expanded cooperation through platforms such as the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, reflecting shared priorities around resilient supply chains and advanced manufacturing. (Source: IANS)
