Shaping U.S.-India AI Cooperation: Insights from the Inaugural U.S.-India AI Fellowship Program

Editors: Andreas Kuehn and Anulekha Nandi
Contributors: Elie Alhajjar, Raj Shekhar, Divyansh Kaushik, Honson Tran, Megha Shrivastava, Zeena Nisar, Ingrid Erickson, Urmi Tat, Resham Sethi, Priyanshu Gupta, Katelyn Radack, Mandeep Rai, Neeraj Jain, Vaibhav Garg, Jatin Patni, and Wm. Matthew Kennedy

AI is promising a profound technological transformation and relentless innovation that will have wide-ranging benefits to society. Nowhere does this hold greater potential than in the burgeoning relationship between the United States and India — two powerhouse democracies with complementary strengths. On one side stands the United States with its leading technology, unmatched innovation capacity, and vast financial capital; and on the other is India, with its large talent pool in the STEM fields, and immense data resources.

As the global AI landscape rapidly evolves, India and the United States have a historic opportunity to shape its trajectory. Their cooperation will not only matter for their own citizens, companies, and governments, but will likely influence how AI is governed, developed, and deployed around the world.

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It was against this dynamic backdrop that ORF America and the Observer Research Foundation launched the U.S.-India AI Fellowship Program in September 2024. The Fellowship has been more than a leadership exercise; it is an attempt to build a bridge between the two nations to develop and sustain U.S.-India cooperation in AI and technology.

This publication offers a pioneering glimpse into how the next generation of thinkers and doers from both India and the United States view the promise and perils of AI, and the future pathways that both nations can take. It identifies the various ways the United States and India can cooperate for the benefit of their societies and citizens.

CONTENTS: 

Foreward
By Samir Saran

Introduction
By Andreas Kuehn and Anulekha Nandi

U.S.-India Cooperation and Strategic Context

• Innovate Together: U.S.-India Collaboration on AI and Emerging Technologies
  By Elie Alhajjar

• Mutual Benefit and Global Good: India-U.S. Collaboration on AI
  By Raj Shekhar

• The IMEC as a Foundation for Secure AI Infrastructure Deployment Across the Global South
  By Divyansh Kaushik

• Artificial Intelligence: The Infinite Game of the 21st Century
  By Honson Tran

Economic, Industrial, and Technological Conditions

• Charting Pathways for India-U.S. Cooperation in AI Compute
  By Megha Shrivastava

• India’s Stakes in Semiconductor Manufacturing and the Future of India-U.S. Bilateral Cooperation in AI
  By Zeena Nisar

• Bridging Innovation: U.S.-India Collaboration to Address the Future of Work
  By Ingrid Erickson

• Balancing Sustainability and Innovation in AI: The U.S.–India Opportunity
  By Urmi Tat

Partnership Frameworks and Sectoral Collaborations

• Bilateral by Design: BRIDGE—A U.S.-India Framework for AI and Global Health Equity
  By Resham Sethi

• AI-Driven Extreme Weather Forecasting: An Avenue for India-U.S. Collaboration
  By Priyanshu Gupta

• Artificial Intelligence in Defence Partnership and Policy
  By Katelyn Radack

• AI and Advanced Space Technologies: A Perspective on India-U.S. Collaboration
  By Mandeep Rai

• Exploring the Symbiotic Relationship Between Open Transaction Networks and AI
  By Neeraj Jain

Forms and Modes of AI Governance

• Polycentric AI Governance: Rethinking Vulnerability Databases
  By Vaibhav Garg

• Whose Fairness? Challenges in Building a Global Framework for AI Fairness
  By Jatin Patni

• Towards a Vernacularised Taxonomy of Potential AI Harms for India and the United States
  By Wm. Matthew Kennedy