Promising outlook for Sino-Indian tech collaboration

Following the conclusion of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, observers see significant opportunity and potential in India-China technology collaboration, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Even though competition remains in the technology area, both China and India have their respective advantages so there is also a powerful complementarity, the experts said.

"While India can contribute the software, talent, services and global application layer, China could contribute manufacturing, hardware, industrial deployment and AI engineering at scale," said Dipankar Chakrabarti, founder and managing director, BDSCube Technology Private Limited.

"The BRICS New Delhi Declaration explicitly supports AI cooperation," said Swaran Singh, a former professor of international relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, India.

AI, climate modelling, public health, disaster forecasting, agricultural innovation and affordable digital public infrastructure offer practical entry points for the two countries to work together in technology, the expert said.

Chakrabarti, who formerly was executive director and India leader for data control office at PwC, told China Daily that the most interesting signal from the BRICS Summit in New Delhi is that AI has moved from being a technology issue to being part of the geopolitical architecture of the Global South.

"The BRICS declaration explicitly calls for international cooperation on AI accessibility, safety, innovation and governance," he said. "India and China could cooperate on AI safety and governance. This is particularly plausible because both countries want greater representation for developing countries in global AI governance."

Debashis Sen, a former senior bureaucrat, told China Daily that the BRICS Summit serves as an invitation for countries to look beyond competition toward areas where cooperation could benefit all.

"AI and robotics are among the most promising. The New Delhi Declaration commits members to implementing the BRICS statement on the global governance of AI, and backs cooperation on Industry 4.0 and smart factories," Sen, former additional chief secretary of IT & E in West Bengal, said.

He added that China has become a major force in humanoid robots, while India offers scale, technical talent and a vast laboratory of real-world challenges such as elder care, traffic management, pedestrian safety and sanitation.

Sen, the founder of New Bengal Consulting Pvt Ltd (NBC), which works on AI adoption in the public sector, sees how much these matter for governance.

Chakrabarti said India and China possess capabilities across the entire stack, but they "don't necessarily need to share their most sensitive technologies to cooperate".

Sen also believed the two neighbors can have promising collaboration. "A focused dialogue on civilian AI and robotics among researchers, startups, industry and policymakers would be a sensible beginning. This would allow two neighbors to compete where necessary and cooperate where possible, so technology becomes a bridge rather than another arena of rivalry," he said.