LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer will meet India’s Narendra Modi in Mumbai next week to drive forward their tech and security partnership, multiple people familiar with the planning told POLITICO.
It is Starmer’s first visit to the country as prime minister and comes just months after the U.K. and India finally closed their long-desired trade deal under the shadow of Donald Trump’s tariff war.
The focus of the visit will be on fintech, “tech-related partnerships” and the “great trade deal that we’ve finally signed,” said an Indian official, granted anonymity to discuss the plans.
In India’s financial capital, Starmer and Modi will speak at the world’s largest fintech festival, before joining senior ministers and officials to advance the 2024 U.K.-India Technology Security Initiative (TSI).
The pact covers co-operation on telecoms, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, quantum, bio-tech, advanced materials and semiconductors.
“Both sides are trying to lean in to try and figure out: How do we bring business into it? How do we bring seed capital in to support it? And what are the specifics that we can get as early harvest wins?” said a person close to the planning, also granted anonymity.
Starmer and Modi will look at the seven pillars of the TSI and see “which are the ones that can move fastest,” they said.
Moonshots
In May, researchers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an international think tank, called for “a greater dose of ambition and creative thinking” in the TSI with a focus on “moonshot projects.”
They call for marrying India’s manufacturing strengths with Britain’s R&D work, including in graphene semiconductors, and a joint quantum lab.
During Modi’s July visit, the U.K. government said the TSI partnership would lead to the creation of a joint center on AI. Collaboration on graphene and critical minerals is also underway with the second phase of the UK-India Critical Minerals Supply Chain Observatory due to begin.
Starmer will bring business delegations in tow, including ones focused on education and critical minerals.
The TSI is overseen by the national security advisers in each country and is reviewed every six months. One of Starmer’s deputy national security advisers was in India last week “for a conversation on some of the outcomes that they think are moving,” according to the person close to the planning cited above.
Collaboration on critical minerals is one of the workstreams that is “moving quickly,” the person added, saying the conversations could lead to “a good set of outcomes and announcements.”
Britain and India will also hold a joint economic trade council meeting, a ministerial process with business, to look at how to leverage the trade deal Modi and Starmer struck in July.
“Different sectors will have different opinions of what might be a problem, what is still a problem, or what could be improved in a regulatory way,” they said, noting that while not every will get resolved immediately, that the process provides “clarity” that will allow both sides to ensure the trade deal provides value immediately when it enters into force.
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