Over the past few weeks, India’s foreign policy moves have included a substantive focus on bolstering tech partnerships.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Australia, for instance, had commentators focusing on the deepening security cooperation with a bilateral commitment “to consult on defence-related developments in the Indo-Pacific that affect shared interests”. However, another consequential outcome was the elevation of the bilateral ambition on tech cooperation with the Australia-India “Partnership on Cyber, Critical Technologies and Supply Chains (PACTS)”. Building on the 2020 Framework Arrangement on Cyber and Cyber-Enabled Critical Technology Cooperation, PACTS elevates tech cooperation efforts through clearly defined cooperation tracks on supply chain resilience and critical technologies.

This focused effort holds promise from the standpoint of a key complementarity: Australia holds proven reserves of at least 21 of the 49 critical minerals identified by the Government of India. In addition, Australia’s uranium reserves will be key for powering India’s planned expansion of nuclear technology towards its goal of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047.