Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged major U.S. technology companies to consider India as a manufacturing and innovation hub.
Trump met with tech CEOs in New York a day after attending the annual Quad meeting, which also includes the United States, Australia and Japan.
India has been positioning itself as an alternative to China to attract global companies looking to diversify their supply chains.
The country has strengthened its semiconductor manufacturing in recent years, but it still lags far behind other major suppliers such as China and Taiwan.
Modi’s meeting with technology leaders on Monday was attended by 15 top CEOs, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, IBM’s Arvind Krishna and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.
Addressing the rally, Prime Minister Modi said, “India can co-invent, co-design and co-produce for the world.”
In a statement, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the roundtable discussed harnessing technology in innovations that “have the potential to revolutionise the global economy and human development”.
Modi also addressed a gathering of Indian-Americans whom he called India’s “brand ambassadors”, telling a crowd of 15,000 in New York that India was key to “global development, global peace, global climate action, global innovation and global supply chains”.
On Saturday, PM Modi met US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Quad summit and the two countries signed several agreements.
The India-US semiconductor pact, which the two countries are calling a “landmark agreement”, aims to set up foundries to produce semiconductors for national security, next-generation communications and green energy applications, a joint statement said.
This will be India’s first project with the US whereby it will provide chips to US, allied and Indian forces.
Previous attempts to develop a domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry in India have not met with hopes, but the deal gives new impetus to the country as the United States seeks to build resilience against China’s semiconductor industry, which is crucial to modern technology.
The Indian Express reported that the factory will focus on “three pillars critical to modern warfare: advanced sensing, advanced communications and high-voltage power electronics.”
The leaders and the joint statement made no mention of ongoing tensions over attacks targeting Sikh leaders in the United States and Canada. Sikh separatist leaders, who have for decades demanded a homeland separate from India, say they have faced threats and assassination attempts by Indian-backed groups. India denies the allegations.
This is Modi’s first visit to the US since winning a third term in June and comes just weeks before the US presidential election, in which the Democrat is fighting for re-election against former Republican President Donald Trump.
Last week, President Trump said Modi was a “great guy” and that he planned to meet with him, but Indian diplomats have been quiet about the meeting, which has so far not taken place.
On Saturday, Quad leaders issued a joint statement that primarily focused on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region.
“We strongly oppose destabilizing and unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo through force or coercion… We seek a region where no country dominates and no country dominates – a region where all countries are free from coercion and can exercise the authority to determine their own future,” the statement said.
Analysts said much of the message was aimed at China, even though it wasn’t named in the statement, and they also noticed the language was quite strong.
“The language in the joint statement on provocations in the South China Sea, while not directly mentioning China, is stronger than ever as all four Quad countries are increasingly concerned about China’s escalating activities in the region,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank.
Quad partners also announced expanded maritime surveillance, a pilot logistics network for natural disasters, and a cervical cancer control project.
