The United States launched Pax Silica in December 2025, an initiative aimed at securing supply chains spanning critical minerals, semiconductors and artificial intelligence infrastructure. India was not among the countries named for its inaugural summit in a U.S. State Department statement reported by The Indian Express.
The department listed counterparts from Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Australia for the summit.
According to the State Department, Pax Silica aims to reduce “coercive dependencies” and protect the materials and capabilities needed for AI. Its scope extends from minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, computing infrastructure and logistics.
Joint projects and investment
The State Department said participating countries had affirmed a commitment to pursue projects addressing supply-chain opportunities and vulnerabilities. Priority areas include critical minerals, semiconductor design, fabrication and packaging, transportation, computing, energy grids and power generation.
The measures outlined by the department include pursuing joint ventures and strategic co-investment opportunities, protecting sensitive technologies and critical infrastructure from undue access or control by countries of concern, and developing trusted technology systems. These systems include communications networks, fibre-optic cables, data centres, AI models and applications.
India’s capabilities and existing technology ties
Ganesh Sivamani, an associate fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, told The Indian Express that countries named in the initiative have distinct strengths in existing semiconductor supply chains. He cited U.S. capabilities in chip design and intellectual property and the Netherlands’ role in supplying lithography equipment used to manufacture chips.
Sivamani said India has strengths in chip design and significant quartz reserves, but lacks the capacity to process quartz to the purity required for semiconductors. He described India’s semiconductor supply chain as still developing.
India already has a technology cooperation framework with Washington through the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, or iCET, announced by President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2022. A U.S. fact sheet describing its inaugural meeting outlined cooperation on AI research, advanced telecommunications, defence innovation and semiconductor supply chains, including support for manufacturing and packaging in India.
A 2024 U.S.-India joint fact sheet also recorded the launch that year of a trilateral technology initiative with South Korea. The document described its purpose as strengthening supply chains for critical industries and supporting innovation.