# The import­ance of Pax Silica for India This article, **“The importance of Pax Silica for India”** (*The Hindu*, Thiruvananthapuram; *World Insight*; **Sanjay Pulipaka**; **21 Jan 2026**) was **tweeted out by Jacob S. Helberg (@UnderSecE)**, who is presented as the **official account of the 22nd Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (@StateDept)**, with the bureau context reflected on the U.S. Department of State page for the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs (**[https://www.state.gov/bureaus-offices/under-secretary-for-economic-affairs/](https://www.state.gov/bureaus-offices/under-secretary-for-economic-affairs/)**) and the specific post available here (**[https://x.com/UnderSecE/status/2014033586211467283?s=20](https://x.com/UnderSecE/status/2014033586211467283?s=20)**). --- #### The Pax Silica ini­ti­at­ive seeks to reduce coer­cive depend­en­cies, secure global tech/AI sup­ply chains, and build trus­ted digital infra­struc­ture. India seeks to join it as it has a strong digital infra­struc­ture, and a grow­ing AI mar­ket  The Hindu (Thiruvananthapuram) - 21 Jan 2026 *WORLD INSIGHT San­jay Pulipaka San­jay Pulipaka is the Chair­per­son of the Politeia Research Found­a­tion. The views expressed here are per­sonal.* The Pax Silica ini­ti­at­ive seeks to reduce coer­cive depend­en­cies, secure global tech/AI sup­ply chains, and build trus­ted digital infra­struc­ture. India seeks to join it as it has a strong digital infra­struc­ture, and a grow­ing AI mar­ket Both endur­ing con­tinu­it­ies and sig­ni­fic­ant shifts define the func­tion­ing of the global eco­nomy. While the North­South divide in per cap­ita income and resource util­isa­tion remains an endur­ing fea­ture, new tech­no­lo­gies such as semi­con­duct­ors and Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) are gain­ing greater sali­ence in power­ing the global eco­nomy. These tech­no­lo­gies will have a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on the every­day lives of many people around the world. Con­sequently, there is now a grow­ing urgency to secure the sup­ply of Rare Earth Ele­ments (REEs) and to nur­ture man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cesses asso­ci­ated with these tech­no­lo­gies. On Decem­ber 12, 2025, the U.S. con­vened the inaug­ural Pax Silica Sum­mit to secure the sup­ply chain of crit­ical min­er­als and build advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing and logist­ics cap­ab­il­it­ies crit­ical to new fron­tier tech­no­lo­gies such as semi­con­duct­ors and AI. ‘Pax’ in Latin means ‘peace’ and ‘Silica’ is a key com­pound used in chip man­u­fac­tur­ing — taken together they sug­gest that the sup­ply chain for new tech­no­lo­gies should pro­mote peace and prosper­ity. The Pax Silica Declar­a­tion noted that the ini­ti­at­ive seeks to reduce coer­cive depend­en­cies, secure global tech/AI sup­ply chains, and build trus­ted digital infra­struc­ture. ## Major par­ti­cipants The mem­ber­ship of the Pax Silica is evolving. While the U.S. and Japan are tech­no­lo­gical power­houses, Aus­tralia is the lead­ing exporter of Lith­ium (a key com­pon­ent in rechargeable bat­ter­ies and digital products) and has sig­ni­fic­ant REE depos­its. The Neth­er­lands has lead­ing firms such as ASML, which develop advanced litho­graphy tech­no­logy that enables semi­con­ductor chip engin­eer­ing, while South Korea is well­known for its man­u­fac­tur­ing prowess in memory chips. Singa­pore also has a long his­tory of chip man­u­fac­tur­ing in col­lab­or­a­tion with lead­ing U.S. firms. Israel has made sig­ni­fic­ant strides in AI soft­ware, defence­related tech­no­lo­gies and cyber­se­cur­ity. Moreover, the United King­dom has the third­largest AI mar­ket and a robust innov­a­tion eco­sys­tem, which includes estab­lished research labs and start­ups. Qatar and the United Arab Emir­ates com­mand large invest­ment funds and have ini­ti­ated meas­ures to develop world­class AI eco­sys­tems. Canada, the European Union, the Organ­isa­tion for Eco­nomic Co­oper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment (OECD), and Taiwan par­ti­cip­ated in the inaug­ural Pax Silica Sum­mit as observ­ers, and they may be admit­ted as mem­bers at a later date. ## Coun­ter­ing China Pax Silica is a response to new geo­pol­it­ical real­it­ies. There are con­cerns that China has emerged as a prin­cipal sup­plier of REEs and acquired the cap­ab­il­ity to shape the global flow of these resources. In recent years, China has restric­ted the flow of crit­ical resources to achieve its desired polit­ical and eco­nomic ends. Last year, in response to U.S. Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s tar­iff policies, China sus­pen­ded the export of REEs to the U.S. and other coun­tries. India also exper­i­enced dis­rup­tions to the import of rare­earth mag­nets from China, neg­at­ively impact­ing the coun­try’s auto­mobile and elec­tron­ics indus­tries. The sup­ply of rare­earth mag­nets to India was restored only after Indian com­pan­ies com­plied with China’s strin­gent licens­ing reg­u­la­tions, which included provid­ing an under­tak­ing that impor­ted rare­earth mag­nets would not be used for defence or dual­use pur­poses. Even before the recent chal­lenges in access­ing REEs, the pan­demic demon­strated the lim­it­a­tions of sup­ply chains that are heav­ily reli­ant on a single coun­try. In 2021, India, along with Aus­tralia and Japan, launched the Sup­ply Chain Resi­li­ence Ini­ti­at­ive. India was also work­ing with the Quad coun­tries to strengthen the sup­ply chain resi­li­ence of crit­ical and emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies. The Quad Crit­ical Min­er­als Ini­ti­at­ive was launched at the for­eign min­is­ters’ meet­ing in Wash­ing­ton in 2025. Inter­est­ingly, des­pite being a mem­ber of the above­men­tioned ini­ti­at­ives, India was not invited to the inaug­ural meet­ing of Pax Silica. However, on Janu­ary 12, the new U.S. Ambas­sador to India, Ser­gio Gor, in his arrival speech, stated that India will soon be invited to join the Pax Silica. ## India’s chal­lenges What would India bring to the table in the Pax Silica? Indian and Amer­ican firms have a his­tory of healthy col­lab­or­a­tion in the tech­no­logy domain. India has a strong digital infra­struc­ture, and its AI mar­ket is grow­ing rap­idly, with many enter­prises adopt­ing AI solu­tions. It is also true that India’s AI and semi­con­ductor eco­sys­tems are well behind those of Pax Silica coun­tries. However, it should be noted that India has launched AI and Semi­con­ductor Mis­sions with sub­stan­tial fin­an­cial alloc­a­tions in recent years. While Indian private com­pan­ies such as the Tatas have inves­ted in the semi­con­ductor seg­ment, lead­ing U.S. chip man­u­fac­tur­ers such as Micron have also inves­ted in India. There has also been a steady increase in the num­ber of newly fun­ded AI com­pan­ies in India. Fur­ther­more, India is send­ing a large num­ber of edu­cated young people to pur­sue gradu­ate and PhD pro­grammes in com­puter sci­ence and related fields in the U.S. If the cur­rent U.S. visa policies per­sist, many of these engin­eers will have to return to their home coun­try, provid­ing India with a large, highly trained human resource pool to power AI and semi­con­ductor indus­tries. Moreover, India has been work­ing to develop resi­li­ent semi­con­ductor sup­ply chains with other Pax Silica coun­tries such as Japan and Singa­pore. Indian private­sec­tor com­pan­ies are also col­lab­or­at­ing with Israeli firms to estab­lish semi­con­ductor fab­ric­a­tion plants in India. By par­ti­cip­at­ing in the Pax Silica, India can scale­up its col­lab­or­a­tions with other coun­tries to develop robust semi­con­ductor and AI eco­sys­tems in the coun­try. However, India will need to be mind­ful of a few chal­lenges that it needs to nav­ig­ate care­fully. Thus far, the mem­ber coun­tries of the Pax Silica, in addi­tion to their tech­no­lo­gical strengths, are U.S. allies and high­income coun­tries. If India decides to join the Pax Silica, it will be the first devel­op­ing coun­try to do so. India will also be the first non­ally (but a stra­tegic part­ner) of the U.S. to join the Pax Silica. This may cre­ate an ‘expect­a­tion gap’ between India and the other mem­bers of Pax Silica. While India’s response to global secur­ity threats may not under­mine the interests of the U.S. and its allies, it will dif­fer in nuance. India will be keen to ensure that its stra­tegic autonomy is not diluted through its par­ti­cip­a­tion in the Pax Silica. As a devel­op­ing coun­try, India has rel­at­ively young semi­con­ductor and AI eco­sys­tems com­pared with those of other Pax Silica coun­tries. Con­sequently, India will seek to pro­tect its semi­con­ductor and AI eco­sys­tems by grant­ing domestic firms pref­er­en­tial treat­ment through sub­sidies, gov­ern­ment pro­cure­ment, and cal­ib­rated import reg­u­la­tions. While the cur­rent mood in Wash­ing­ton may not be in agree­ment with such policy meas­ures, it remains unclear how other Pax Silica coun­tries will respond to such ini­ti­at­ives. ## The road ahead At the moment, China is a lead­ing player in the REE sup­ply chain and has already insti­tuted export con­trol reg­u­la­tions to pre­serve its dom­in­ant pos­i­tion. Beijing has also not demon­strated a will­ing­ness to cre­ate REE sup­ply chains that are sens­it­ive to the devel­op­ment needs of emer­ging eco­nom­ies such as India. It is likely that the Pax Silica will come up with its own export reg­u­la­tion frame­work. Over time, two REE sup­ply chains will dom­in­ate the global eco­nomy, namely that of China’s and Pax Silica’s. Given the his­tory of col­lab­or­a­tion between Indian and West­ern firms in inform­a­tion tech­no­logy and related domains, India may lean towards the Pax Silica. However, given the cur­rent strain in eco­nomic rela­tions with the U.S., India may seek to have more con­ver­sa­tions to bet­ter under­stand the pos­sible tra­ject­ory of Pax Silica’s evol­u­tion. [Source](https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu-thiruvananthapuram-9wwe/20260121/282308211506999)