New Delhi, June 14 (KNN) India and the US on Tuesday unveiled the road map to drive cooperation in hi-tech across seven areas, ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) to semiconductors and defence, with the emphasis on eliminating barriers and export controls standing in the way of enhanced collaboration.

National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval and his visiting US counterpart Jake Sullivan spelled out the initiative which is a part of the initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) launched in January to envisage closer cooperation between private industry, researchers and academia of the two sides.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a state visit to the US next week and this is also part of efforts to focus on deliverables for PM Modi.

Sullivan also met PM Modi and briefed him on progress in various areas of cooperation. He said US President Joe Biden looks forward to welcoming PM Modi on his state visit.

Expressing satisfaction at the deepening of the comprehensive global strategic partnership with the US, PM Modi said he looks forward to a “productive visit and an engaging conversation with President Biden on bilateral, regional and global issues.”

Addressing a roundtable on the theme “Advancing India-US iCET” organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Doval highlighted the speed at which things had moved. “I was very excited, but I was also sceptical. I wasn’t very sure whether the idea would be able to take off. Today, I am much more confident and hopeful. And it is because of not what has happened between the governments,” he said.

He credited it to response from industry, business, scientists, research scholars and institutions.

“They took the battle, and they took the battle much faster, at much greater speed than I had anticipated,” he said.

Sullivan said the cooperation was about much more than technology. “It’s about our people-to-people relationships. It’s about building the skills of our populations. It’s about building habits of trust and confidence between every element of our societies and governments, it’s about deepening our defence cooperation in ways that will serve us strategically as well as economically,” he said.  (KNN Bureau)