Why the US-led Pax Silica tech alliance snubbed India

The Pax Silica alliance, formally launched in Washington, DC, on December 11, 2025, signals a definitive strategy to redraw the geopolitical map for the age of artificial intelligence.

Its name, fusing the Latin Pax with Silica, deliberately evokes the concept of Pax Americana, projecting a vision of a peaceful, stable and America-controlled global technology supply chain.

This United States-led initiative seeks to forge a secure, allied ecosystem encompassing semiconductors, AI, critical minerals and advanced logistics, with the paramount goal of reducing strategic “over-reliance” on China.

Yet, one conspicuously empty chair at the inaugural gathering captured global attention: the US decision to exclude India from its foundational roster.

The alliance’s founding members are the US, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, Australia and the United Arab Emirates. Taiwan participates as an observer.

Notably, within the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), the US, Japan and Australia are present as core members, while India—often touted as a key pillar of the Quad—is conspicuously absent.

This omission transcends mere oversight; it represents a deliberate strategic calculus that unveils a profound skepticism in the US regarding India’s current technological prowess and its long-term strategic alignment.

US Undersecretary Jacob Helberg framed the exclusion within a “tiered strategy”: a core tier comprising pivotal allies such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the Netherlands; a secondary tier of other reliable partners; and an open door to future additions.

Addressing the obvious snub, he diplomatically referenced India as a “partner with high strategic potential.” It is precisely this term—“potential”—that lays bare the core issue. From Washington’s perspective, India remains a nation of “potential,” not one of current, actionable capability for this high-stakes alliance.

This assessment is rooted in several hard realities. A primary objective of Pax Silica is to eliminate “forced dependence” within critical supply chains. India, however, finds itself deeply enmeshed in the very dependencies the alliance aims to circumvent.

While New Delhi has identified a list of critical minerals, its reliance on Chinese imports for most of these ranges from 50-100%. Integrating India in this context would introduce significant risks rather than enhancing the group’s collective security.

Similarly, despite commendable strides in developing a domestic semiconductor industry, India does not yet possess the advanced capabilities in high-end chip design and fabrication that define leaders such as Taiwan, South Korea or Japan.

Pax Silica is engineered around existing technological leadership and sovereign capability. Membership, particularly at its core, demands the capacity to contribute decisively to supply chain resilience, not merely to consume its outputs. India’s role, for now, would be largely nominal—a compromise the US is unwilling to make by “lowering the bar” for entry.

India is undeniably a colossal market within the global digital economy. Yet, its big data infrastructure and core digital services predominantly operate on platforms owned and controlled by US tech giants—Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon.

This dynamic firmly casts India as a major consumer within the US-led technological landscape, not a facile co-producer or architectural peer. Pax Silica is fundamentally a pact for “supply chain security” and co-creation, not for expanding a “supply chain customer base.”

India’s historical position as a purchaser and user of high technology, rather than a foundational contributor, makes its exclusion a pragmatic, if blunt, Pax Silica decision.

Moreover, India’s long-cherished and actively practiced policy of “strategic autonomy” directly conflicts with the alliance’s foundational requirement of strategic predictability and loyalty. Washington views Pax Silica as an “alliance of trust,” necessitating tight coordination on export controls, investment screening and technology security protocols.

India’s simultaneous pursuit of defense cooperation with Russia, its active membership in China-influenced forums such as BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and its domestic protectionist policies, such as “Make in India,” collectively portray a nation engaged in “multi-alignment.”

This approach breeds wariness in Washington, fostering concern that shared sensitive technology could be leveraged to balance relations with US adversaries or fall into unwelcome hands. In contrast, allies like Australia and Japan maintain unambiguous, unbreakable security treaties and intelligence-sharing frameworks with the US, offering the clarity India’s independent stance does not.

Underpinning these practical considerations is a broader, long-term strategic apprehension. US strategists have long harbored a nuanced view of India as both a partner and a potential future competitor.

The traumatic experience with China—where technology transfer and market access inadvertently fostered a peer rival—looms large. Consequently, the US policy seeks a “Goldilocks” India: one strong enough to serve as a counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific, but not so technologically empowered that it could evolve into a rival at the forefront of foundational technologies.

Elevating India to full membership in a core tech alliance like Pax Silica would accelerate its ascent precisely toward that undesired extreme. It would position India not just as a market and consumer of US tech companies, but as a co-architect and inevitable long-term competitor in defining the technological order.

Washington’s current decision is a clear attempt to avoid replicating past strategic errors by controlling the pace and depth of technological collaboration. Ultimately, India’s exclusion from Pax Silica is both a stark warning and a pivotal opportunity for India.

The snub is more than a diplomatic slight; it is a clarion call. It demonstrates that the US and its closest allies are not prepared to anoint India as a technology and strategy leader. In their calculus, India remains a vast market and a useful strategic counterbalance but not yet an indispensable part of their technological inner sanctum.

This reality check should catalyze India. It must accelerate its drive toward genuine self-reliance in critical minerals, semiconductor fabrication and data sovereignty. The vision of an “Atmanirbhar Bharat” (Self-Reliant India) must transform from a mere political slogan into an urgent, existential mission.

Concurrently, New Delhi must undertake a sober cost-benefit analysis of its “strategic partnership” with the US, knowing now that membership in dialogues like the QUAD does not guarantee a seat at the table where the most sensitive technological blueprints are shared.

Pax Silica is America’s architectural blueprint for the coming technology war—a framework for a new, allied Technosphere. For now, that blueprint explicitly excludes India. This is a diplomatic failure for India right now but a hard lesson in the new rules of geopolitical power.

The message is unequivocal: in the 21st century, partnerships alone are insufficient. Only indigenous strength, innovation and sovereign technological capability confer real influence at the global level.

India must build this strength decisively if it wishes to evolve from what the late Lee Kuan Yew once described as a perpetual “country of the future” into a leading power of the present.

Bhim Bhurtel is on X at @BhimBhurtel