India-US: Expert Defense and AI will influence the next stage of relations

 India-US: According to a top India-US policy expert, defense cooperation, artificial intelligence, and new technologies are expected to serve as the cornerstones of the next phase of India-United States interaction as the two countries look to maintain momentum in vital areas despite unresolved political and trade problems.

While there have been obstacles to high-level political interaction, defense, technology, and energy cooperation have advanced and provide a basis for stabilizing bilateral relations in 2026, Dhruva Jaishankar, Executive Director of the Observer Research Foundation America, told IANS.

“There has been some stabilization in the India-US relationship,” Jaishankar said, adding that cabinet-level talks had resumed after a short break and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump had spoken “at least four times” between mid-September and the end of the year.

He cited “some fruitful agreements on defense, on energy” as proof that useful collaboration had persisted even in times of political unrest.

Defense is still one of the partnership’s strongest foundations, according to Jaishankar. With collaborative training programs, continuous defense sales, and exercises involving all three services, military-to-military contact has progressively increased.

“I believe there is a good sense of military-to-military engagement,” he added, noting that historically, the difficulty has been shifting from sales to cooperative defense co-production and research.

Although there has been inconsistent success in that area, Jaishankar said that advanced and specialty capabilities, as opposed to legacy platforms, provide the most attractive chances. He cited autonomous underwater systems and counter-drone capabilities as examples of “the area that will be interesting to watch will be mostly in very, very cutting-edge technologies.”

He said that there is room for closer cooperation in these areas since India has operational needs and the US is still at the forefront of technology. But he warned that private sector involvement would be more important for advancement than government-to-government partnerships.

He said, “Some of that is, again, more at the business-to-business level and less at the government-to-government level.”

Another area of increasing interest is artificial intelligence, but expectations are not entirely in line on both sides, according to Jaishankar. According to him, India is committed to implementing AI applications quickly that have both economic viability and real public advantages.

“Very quick applications and use cases for AI that really improve the lives of everyday people are what India wants to see,” he said.

In contrast, the United States is placing a high priority on leadership in the development of cutting-edge AI, partly due to wider geopolitical rivalry. According to Jaishankar, “the US, on the other hand, seeks… developing cutting-edge AI applications,” although the overlap is more constrained by the disparate goals than is often believed.

However, he said that when interests converge, cooperation persists. Big US IT companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have made large investments in India, demonstrating their faith in the country’s talent pool and digital environment.

Jaishankar also emphasized the persistence of energy cooperation, characterizing it as an area where practical agreements have produced outcomes despite a slowdown in more extensive political participation.

In response to a query on Quad, Jaishankar said that the expected leaders’ meeting has been postponed several times, and political-level momentum has lagged. He emphasized that working-level participation has persisted, nevertheless.

“Working-level contacts have remained,” he said, citing maritime drills and counterterrorism discussions that have continued under a more targeted theme.

Considering the future, Though he expressed cautious confidence that some resolution may come later in 2026, perhaps around the time the US hosts the G20 conference, Jaishankar noted that success on trade, notably tariffs, would be crucial to unlocking higher-level political participation.