Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Secretary S Krishnan has said that India’s invitation to join the US-led Pax Silica initiative reflects global recognition of the country as a trusted partner in critical technology supply chains.

He noted that Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw is currently in Washington attending a meeting on critical minerals, underlining India’s growing role in strategic technology discussions.

“My minister is in Washington attending a meeting on critical minerals. From a strategic point of view, it is important that India is at the high table when these issues are discussed,” Krishnan said.

“Fundamentally, this is about securing the supply chain of critical minerals, and it is important for a country like India to be part of it. This is a recognition of trust,” he added.

On Monday, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor announced that New Delhi would be invited next month to join Pax Silica, a US-led initiative aimed at securing supply chains in silicon, advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence.

Speaking at an event organised by industry body Nasscom, Krishnan said India should aim to become the global “use-case capital” for artificial intelligence. He said the government is following a balanced approach that keeps India open to global players while building sovereign AI capabilities.

Krishnan outlined India’s AI roadmap ahead of the IndiaAI Impact Summit, a multilateral meeting of global leaders scheduled to be held in New Delhi next month to discuss global AI policy.

Addressing concerns over the concentration of AI infrastructure in a few companies, particularly in chip manufacturing, Krishnan said India is following a technology-agnostic procurement policy.

“We are not going to say we will buy only NVIDIA GPUs. Our approach is to work with whoever produces the chips,” he said, adding that this prevents vendor lock-in.

He also pointed to developments such as DeepSeek to underline that AI development does not always require massive capital. “DeepSeek showed that AI need not cost as much as people think. There are ways to do it cheaper,” he said.

The Prime Minister recently met 12 startups and institutions selected under the India AI Mission to build India’s first foundation models, signalling the government’s push for indigenous AI capabilities.

Krishnan said India’s key strength lies in remaining an open technology system. “People in India must have access to the latest technology. Some we will build ourselves, some we will adopt, but restricting access because it is not Indian makes no sense,” he said.

He added that India’s pursuit of sovereign AI capabilities and strategic autonomy is in the global interest, as it creates an additional production and supply option for the world.

“AI democratisation is not just about models and computing power. It is about real-world applications where revenue will be generated,” he said, comparing the opportunity to the transformation of India’s IT industry.

Responding to comparisons with the $500 billion AI investment announced in the US, Krishnan said such investments are largely private-sector driven. He noted that Google, Microsoft and AWS have announced investments of around $70 billion in India over the past few months.

“If that compute is here, you can build on it and create real impact,” he said.

The government is also developing sovereign cloud capacity for AI use in government and restricted sectors, with several companies already offering such services.

Highlighting progress in semiconductors, Krishnan said India accounts for nearly 20 per cent of the global chip design workforce. He added that fabs and advanced packaging facilities under the India Semiconductor Mission have started receiving orders, with some planning to export their entire output.

“The best test of industrial policy is whether you are competitive and able to export. That shows the policy is fundamentally sound,” he said.

He also said that ISM 2.0, announced by the Prime Minister in September, is now in its final stages.