As a testimony to the increasing importance of emerging technologies on the world stage, topics such as artificial intelligence, 5G and drone technology have been the recurrent points of discussion during the ongoing Quad summit in the Unites States.

The first leg of Prime Minister Modi‘s engagements on the sidelines of the Australia-India-Japan-U.S. summit was with American business leaders. The first in-person Leaders’ Summit of the Quadrilateral Framework is to be held at the White House on 24 September after the last virtual meeting which was held in March this year.

The fact the AI featured dominantly in most of the PM's meetings with the global CEOs shows how potent this technological force has become even on the diplomatic front. AI and allied technologies will be the key driver of foreign investment in India by large American corporations. Some very interesting meetings and statements were seen on the first morning of PM Modi’s US visit. 

The Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon met India’s PM and talked about many things that are relevant to the future of technology, such as semiconductors and 5G-enabled digital transformation. Mr. Amon expressed keenness to work with India in areas such as 5G and other initiatives under the Digital India efforts. 

“We continue to invest in India in R&D. We are a company there are hundred percent fabless so we don’t manufacture our own semiconductors. However, we see a lot of activity right now because of the necessity to geo-diversify and build a very resilient supply chain for semiconductors. We believe India could be an important destination and if that infrastructure is available in India, we’ll will be very happy to partner with India,” said Amon.

Historical trends have shown a clear correlation between AI and chip design: progress in the former follows any progress in latter. With the growth of AI, moreover, hardware is fashionable again after years of software being the centre of attraction. Amon described semiconductors as an important topic of his conversation with the PM, adding that they also spoke about the “opportunity to continue to build an incredible mobile ecosystem that is developing in India.” 

“We’re so proud of our partnership with India. We’ve been in India for 26 years. We have over 12,000 employees and advanced R&D – we do a lot of our chips, we deal in software,” said Amon.

Mr Amon also talked about the ‘Qualcomm Design in India’ program that encourages design houses and product companies to invent useful and innovative hardware product designs. Besides advancing the domestic industry, there is an opportunity to make India an exporter of technology, according to the CEO.

Indian-American President and CEO of Adobe Shantanu Narayen also met with the PM. Terming the investments in India as Adobe’s “secret weapon”, Narayen said, “We started in India well before it was fashionable to have an Indian facility but we also said right from the beginning that we want the best and we want to be able to file more patents and actually do fundamental innovation. We have multiple centres in India, we have it Noida, in Bangalore and Hyderabad, in addition to our sales offices all around the country and it has been a home run.”

Commenting on the power of AI, he said, “Adobe has three growth initiatives. Everything around creativity, document productivity and powering digital businesses ­– and artificial intelligence is going to change how all those three solutions are delivered. So, we intend to continue to invest heavily in India.”

Vivek Lall, Chief Executive of General Atomics appreciated the liberalisation of drone laws in India. He termed the the new drone laws as “laudable policy prescriptions and reforms” that will “certainly catalyse a lot of interest and investments in India.”

Elaborating on crtitical technologies, he said that these are “technologies where one wants to leapfrog into the next generation and not only the platform systems but as well as the design and development of various aspects of the ecosystem so that could include the maintenance and so forth so one has to look at the overall ecosystem and make sure that the trajectory is on a path that leads to sustained cooperation.”

Image tweeted by PMO