US-South Korea-India tech partnership proposed

Abhishek Sharma

The next era of geopolitics will be dictated not by those countries with only military power but by those innovating and investing in critical and emerging technology (CET) and controlling their supply chain.

Some countries have realized this necessity and are already working on developing and strengthening their CET capabilities.

However, this is also a collaborative effort that needs regional and global partnerships.

Partnerships forged in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to be pivotal in shaping global geopolitical and geoeconomic alignments.

The U.S. and India CET collaboration in the areas of AI, semiconductors, cybersecurity and critical minerals among others, stands out in the region.

However, this bilateral technology partnership will be further strengthened with the addition of another vital technology leader and innovator in the region, South Korea.

The idea of potential technology collaboration between India, South Korea and the U.S. was announced at the inaugural launch meeting of the Next Generation CET Dialogue between the U.S. and South Korea held in December last year. This would be India's third CET engagement after the U.S. and EU, and the first informal trilateral dialogue is expected to occur in the first quarter of this year.

India’s partnership in the CET domain was started by the national security agencies of India and the U.S. to establish a technology partnership framework to deepen strategic relations. It aimed to signal India’s increasing importance as a regional technology leader and highlight the importance “to build open, accessible, secure and resilient technology systems and value chains, based on confidence and trust.”

Such technology partnerships between democratic countries were seen as critical when surveillance and espionage influenced technology and its innovation.

This perspective is borrowed from the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific, which reaffirms the importance of international-based rules and order in the region. The trilateral CET dialogue between the three shows that there is interest and recognition in both Seoul and New Delhi to collaborate in the CET sector, building on each other’s capabilities and reiterating the need to build open, secure and trusted CET.

Although the three countries can collaborate on many CETs, I have initially identified some strategic technology areas where the scope of collaboration between India, the U.S. and South Korea is much needed. These include semiconductor supply chains, AI, cyber security, quantum science and technology and critical mineral supply chains.

The semiconductor supply chain is an important sector led by South Korea and the U.S.

India can leverage the tech partnership to establish a holistic semiconductor ecosystem. The U.S. and South Korea can help India develop a resilient semiconductor supply chain in design, manufacturing and fabrication by identifying opportunities for strategic development between the countries. We have already seen some development through U.S.-India CET cooperation and this trilateral relationship can be used to build upon that foundation. The U.S. and South Korea can assist the Indian workforce in skilling and up-skilling to cater to their domestic demands.

All these efforts would further consolidate India’s role in the semiconductor supply chain. We have already seen some progress in this domain with major companies like Micron and LAM Research investing in India.

AI, cybersecurity and quantum computing are other areas where all countries need to work together to establish a responsible code of conduct, build principles and create standards.

The three countries can work on joint research projects on cyber-physical systems, AI and quantum technologies. Foremost, AI is a technology where all countries need to work together to ensure a balanced approach between mitigating risks and leveraging its commercial opportunities.

To realize this, there is a scope for international collaboration across platforms like the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) and the United Nations General Assembly on creating consensus. Besides, responsible use of AI in the military is an emerging issue where they can work together to build consensus, particularly after the recent incident where AI applications in the military have raised concerns.

South Korea will host the REAIM 2024 summit this year and inviting India would be a good start.

The cyber domain is another area that needs much attention, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, which is witnessing rising cybercrimes and cyber-attacks, like ransomware and attacks targeting critical infrastructure facilities. Democratic countries need to coordinate with each other in areas such as cyber approaches, cyber defense, information sharing and law enforcement.

On the quantum front, there is an opportunity to collaborate between academia, startups and industries to coordinate work towards quantum technologies like quantum communications and quantum science.

Lastly, critical minerals are considered the most important among these areas, as much of the technology stated above can be scaled only with a sustained supply of critical minerals, including rare earth elements. This initiative would add to the existing ones, such as critical mineral dialogue on supply chain stability under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and mineral security partnership, which all three are part of. South Korea and the U.S. can leverage existing bilateral cooperation with India and set up a trilateral dialogue mechanism, as done in the case of the U.S., South Korea and Mongolia, focused mainly on information exchange and cooperation on the critical mineral supply chain.

The U.S. and South Korea can explore joint investment initiatives and projects in India, similar to the rare earth project in Vietnam, after the opportunities in mining have opened up in exploration, with more liberal rules, policies and regulations in place. The trilateral mechanism would further catalyze and encourage private sector cooperation by establishing a critical mineral supply chain across upstream, midstream and downstream segments, and creating a system that adheres to the highest environmental, social and corporate governance standards. This would help India and others fix strategic vulnerabilities, achieve a net-zero target, and provide a secure and stable supply of minerals required in high and clean energy technologies.

The CET trilateral mechanism would help India attract much-needed investments and technology from South Korea and the presence of the U.S. makes the process much easier and trustworthy for Korean companies venturing out to find attractive options.

Going forward, the aim of the trilateral partnership should be to consolidate respective emerging technologies capabilities and capacities to strengthen strategic collaboration, to co-produce and co-develop CET, and to develop a secure and sustainable innovation ecosystem and CET supply chain in the three countries.

The CET partnerships need a robust mechanism through a multi-stakeholder approach between national scientific and academic institutions, startups, and industries working on CET, as we have seen between India and the U.S. under the i-CET initiative. If successful, the partnership can be replicated or expanded by including like-minded countries like Japan, Australia or Taiwan. This CET trilateral signals that this year is the right moment for New Delhi and Seoul to elevate their special strategic partnership beyond traditional domains, adding technology to the earlier stronger economic relationship. The big picture is that through this partnership, India, South Korea and the U.S. would be able to establish secure, safe and trusted supply chains for themselves as well as the Indo-Pacific region.

Abhishek Sharma is a research associate at Centre for Air Power Studies based in Delhi, India.