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Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg told reporters at the Foreign Press Center briefing on Wednesday, December 17, that the US is in “consistent dialogue” with India about ways to “deepen our economic security cooperation.”
Last week, the US launched ‘PAX Silica’, a strategic initiative to build a secure, prosperous and innovation-driven silicon supply chain ranging from critical minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure and logistics.
The initiative includes Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Australia. However, it did not include India. Except India, all other Quad countries – Japan, Australia and the US – are part of the new initiative. Helberg acknowledged that there is “much speculation” as to why India was not included in Pax Silica and denied that there was any link between Delhi’s exclusion and the current tensions with Washington.
“So my understanding is that there was a lot of speculation behind India not participating in the Pax Silica summit,” Helberg said in response to a question on why India was not included in the Pax Silica initiative and whether it was due to political tensions between the two sides.
He said, “I want to be clear that the conversations between the United States and India related to the trade arrangement are an entirely separate and parallel track to our discussions on supply chain security. We are not mixing those two things. We view India as a highly strategic potential partner on efforts related to supply chain security, and we welcome the opportunity to engage with them.”
Helberg said he is in “almost daily communication” with negotiators in Delhi and “we are actively determining ways to rapidly deepen that cooperation.” Helberg said he will attend the India AI Impact Summit in February, adding, “We will have the opportunity to meet in person and hopefully set some concrete milestones.”
“But we plan to greatly deepen our bilateral cooperation between the United States and India on economic security matters,” he said.
New Delhi will host the India-AI Impact Summit 2026 on February 19-20, which will focus on the principles of ‘People, Planet and Progress’. The summit, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the France AI Action Summit, will be the first global AI summit held in the Global South.
Hellberg said the Pax Silica initiative aims to secure the silicon supply chain, which he described as the “lifeline” of cutting-edge technologies from cars to the smartphone industry and artificial intelligence.
Explaining the reasoning behind the selection of initial countries for Pax Silica, he said that while many countries contribute differently to the overall global supply chain, “we focused on a segment of the supply chain that was very focused on semiconductor manufacturing.”
In this regard, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Netherlands actually form the “nucleus of semiconductor manufacturing”. “And so we decided to start there — to start with a small group discussion — before we started getting down to the second and third degrees in the supply chain stack,” he said.
He stressed that this is very much part of “our action plan” for 2026, which is a very clear path for countries with aligned, credible and unique contributions to be allowed to actually join the Pax Silica framework. The State Department has said the Pax Silica initiative aims to reduce coercive dependence, protect the foundational materials and capabilities for artificial intelligence, and ensure that aligned nations can develop and deploy transformative technologies at scale.
Halberg and representatives of Japan, Israel, Australia, Singapore and the Republic of Korea inaugurated Pax Silica last Friday, December 12, by signing the Pax Silica Declaration, which advances U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for “a new era of economic governance that creates peace and security for the United States and its allies through the power of private investment, free enterprise, and economics. Additional signatories are expected to follow.”
The inaugural Pax Silica summit convened counterparts from eight countries. “Together, these countries are home to the most important companies and investors powering the global AI supply chain,” the State Department said.
The department said the United States is convening a coalition of countries on the principle of building a secure, resilient and innovation-driven ecosystem across the entire global technology supply chain – from critical minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure and logistics.
“Pax Silica is a new type of international grouping and partnership – which aims to unite countries that host the world’s most advanced technology companies to unleash the economic potential of the new AI era. Pax Silica seeks to establish a sustainable economic order that underpins an AI-driven era of prosperity in partner countries,” she had said.