Silicon Valley’s push to promote India-US defence cooperation

An India-US initiative to promote defence innovation will get a Silicon Valley push this week, with top military manufacturers, startups and venture capital firms gathering at the Stanford University to identify future military challenges, emerging disruptive technologies and jointly develop solutions for the armed forces.

The INDUS X summit, themed on harnessing investment opportunities to enhance cross-border defence innovation ecosystems, will see at least 25 Indian and US defence and space startups meeting and presenting innovations to top policy leaders and investors.

Launched in June last year during PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, the INDUS X summit is a key pillar to the initiative of co-development and co-production of weapon systems between the two countries.

“It is an exciting intersection since this is the first time INDUS-X is being hosted at Stanford and Silicon Valley, which will be the link for startups and VCs with the defence industry and policymakers and fortify defences in the 21st-century era of autonomous weapons and new threats,” said Mukesh Aghi, president, USISPF.