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India and the US have unveiled a new initiative for their defence cooperation, the Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance (ASIA), aimed at scaling industry partnerships and enhancing production of autonomous systems which will foster next generation defence and technological collaboration, specifically in the field of underwater domain awareness.
According to a joint statement released following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent meeting with US President Donald Trump, this move was based on the US-India Roadmap for Defence Industrial Cooperation, which particularly focused on autonomous systems. As part of this initiative, a new partnership between Anduril Industries and Mahindra Group was announced on advanced autonomous technologies with the addition of L3 Harris and Bharat Electronics to collaborate on the co-development of active towed array systems. "Building on the US-India Roadmap for Defence Industrial Cooperation and recognising the rising importance of autonomous systems, the leaders announced a new initiative--the Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance (ASIA)--to scale industry partnerships and production in the Indo-Pacific," the statement read. As per the statement, "the leaders welcomed a new partnership between Anduril Industries and Mahindra Group on advanced autonomous technologies to co-develop and co-produce state-of-the-art maritime systems and advanced AI-enabled counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to strengthen regional security, and between L3 Harris and Bharat Electronics for co-development of active towed array systems." India and US also discussed the expansion of military cooperation across various domains, including air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace, with an emphasis on enhanced training, exercises, and operations, incorporating the latest technologies. Both leaders further highlighted the forthcoming "Tiger Triumph" tri-service exercise, which will be held in India and will be larger in scale and complexity than its previous editions. In terms of supporting overseas military deployments, India and the US committed to improving logistics, intelligence sharing, and force mobility in the Indo-Pacific. "The leaders committed to break new ground to support and sustain the overseas deployments of the U.S. and Indian militaries in the Indo-Pacific, including enhanced logistics and intelligence sharing, as well as arrangements to improve force mobility for joint humanitarian and disaster relief operations along with other exchanges and security cooperation engagements," the statement further read. These come under the "US-India COMPACT for the 21st Century" initiative launched by PM Modi and President Trump to drive change in "Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce and Technology" between the two countries. (ANI)
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