India and the United States will create a roadmap by the end of the year to speed up the development of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, according to a joint statement by the two countries. The initiative aims to boost investments in next generation data centres and expand access to computing power for AI in India with US-origin AI infrastructure.

The collaboration forms part of the US-India TRUST (Transforming the Relationship Utilising Strategic Technology) initiative, which looks to enhance government-to-government, academia and private sector collaboration to promote application of critical and emerging technologies in areas like defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum, biotechnology, and energy and space.

The aim is also to encourage the use of verified technology vendors and ensure sensitive technologies are protected.

“The US and India will work together to enable industry partnerships and investments in next generation data centres, cooperation on development and access to compute and processors for AI, for innovations in AI models and building AI applications for solving societal challenges while addressing the protections and controls necessary to protect these technologies and reduce regulatory barriers,” said the statement.

The development assumes significance amid key announcements by the US government on limiting exports of graphics processing units (GPU) to other countries as well as the Stargate Project wherein US companies will be investing $500 billion to build AI infrastructure.

Simultaneously, India is also looking to come up with its own foundational models over the next 10 months for which creating an AI infrastructure is essential, experts said. India has started the process to make available 19,000 GPUs for AI computing to startups, academia and researchers.

“Deploying AI solutions presents considerable infrastructure challenges in terms of access to GPUs, data storage, latency, scalability and costs. The roadmap under the TRUST initiative can help alleviate some of these constraints for India, and position it as a competitive player within the global AI ecosystem,” said Dhruv Garg, partner at Indian Governance and Policy Project (IGAP) and a tech lawyer.

According to Garg, the interplay of this announcement with the Biden-era export control rules on AI technology diffusion will need to be considered. It is currently unclear if these export restrictions will be enforced against India.

AS Rajgopal, managing director and chief executive officer of NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies said, “the collaboration is seen as improving AI adoption. However, this may not mean lifting of GPU curbs on India at this point”.

According to Rajgopal, the success of the India-US initiative depends on the US companies looking to invest in India and contribute to the growth. The governments can only enable the ecosystem.

Expert said India needs to also think what such initiatives mean for domestic development of large language models (LLMs) and technological self reliance.

As part of the initiatives both the governments also announced that they intend to build trusted and resilient supply chains, including for semiconductors, critical minerals, advanced materials and pharmaceuticals.

Ashok Chandak, president of India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) said, “supply chain resilience, semiconductors (after India manufacturing ramp up) and electronics exports from India should get a major filip in future”.

According to Chandak, the semiconductor and electronics export to India may not have impact due to reciprocal tarrif approach of US. Though, likely tariffs on electronics import in USA considering America First approach is unclear, he added.