For most of India’s Independent life, non-alignment wasn’t just a foreign policy, it was a point of pride and built into the country’s bones. For generations of Indians who grew up with that policy, it became a part of how they understood India – principled, sovereign, and no singular country’s ally. In February 2026, India signed onto Pax Silica, a US-led technology and supply chain initiative anchored around AI, semiconductors, critical minerals, and energy. For a community watching a world that feels increasingly like it is sorting itself into sides, and watching the news wondering what comes next, it is worth understanding what India actually walked into and what it is betting on getting out of it.
The reaction was swift. Popular media and social platforms framed it as a semiconductor alliance, a powerful new bloc tightening its grip on global chip supply chains. However, it wasn’t the narrative Washington and New Delhi were telling. In the Declaration, the word “Artificial Intelligence” appears five times, whereas the word “Semiconductors” only appears once. AI runs on silicon, critical minerals, semiconductors, and resilient supply chains. Pax Silica isn’t only about semiconductors, or chips, or minerals, but about the end-to-end process of mining and processing critical minerals to manufacture chips for AI systems.
Pax Silica
Established in December 2025, Pax Silica aims to secure critical technology supply chains and counter China’s dominance in AI and hardware. Australia is a founding member alongside the United States, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Israel, among other signatories. India’s entry is a significant addition, as a large non-Western democracy with no mutual-defence treaty with the US, bringing reserves and a massive talent pool. It raises questions about India’s multi-alignment strategy and how far New Delhi is willing to collaborate with Washington on trade and security.
India’s entry ticket is its rare earth reserves, critical minerals processing ambition, and a vast talent pool for research and development. India holds the third-largest rare earth reserves by most estimates, yet accounts for less than 1% of global mining output. Australia, by contrast, has an established mining and processing foundation. The two countries have had a formal Critical Minerals Investment Partnership since 2022 with the goal of strengthening the supply chains and investment in critical minerals projects. The $250 million Pax Silica Fund, the US State Department’s flagship effort on AI and supply chain security aims to address the risks of diversifying supply chains by creating a trusted network for trade. However, whether the fund supports India’s ambitions of becoming a processing partner depends on whether India is able to leverage the Fund’s goal of securing supply chains to build its processing capacity. That said, the fund still requires Congressional approval, and has no guarantee in the current US fiscal environment.
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This gap between India’s reserves and its processing reality is where Pax Silica’s founding members hold the most leverage over India’s ambitions. But the minerals discussion is part of a larger question – one that matters directly to Indians and Australians working in technology, research and innovation. Who gets to have a say in how AI is developed and deployed? If the US, UK, and Japan amongst other key players in AI continue to set the rules for how AI is developed and deployed, Indian and Australian professionals may find themselves compromising within a framework that doesn’t fully support their ambitions. Through this partnership, India has a chance to establish itself as a credible partner in the AI ecosystem, not just a provider of raw materials and human resources.
The Pax Silica Declaration is almost four months old. The Pax Silica Fund is relatively newer – announced in late March 2026, only weeks after India signed the Declaration. India’s joining of Pax Silica is perhaps better viewed as an audition. Joining an initiative where the norms, rules, and goals are all pre-determined, India will have to convert its mineral reserves and talent pool into genuine influence over how the initiative evolves. How the Fund’s contracts are structured and whether they align with India’s processing ambitions will be the first real answer. What India actually signed is clearer than what India will get out of it.
Tanisha Shah is a Masters of International Relations student at The University of Sydney.
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