India to take up Biden’s AI chip export curbs with Trump govt

India will raise the issue of the US imposing a country-specific cap on exports of AI compute and foundational models with the incoming Donald Trump administration, a senior official told ET. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has held “initial discussions” with various arms of the government, including national security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval’s office, and has shared analysis and concerns pertaining to the move by the outgoing Joe Biden US administration. “We really have to take it up with the new government once it comes in,” the official said.

The cap could be detrimental to India’s tech industry in the long term even if it’s not an immediate crisis for the country, the person added.

The government will raise the issues under the India-US Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) framework, the official said.

The framework, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Biden on the sidelines of the Quad Summit in Tokyo in May 2022, focuses on collaboration in critical and emerging technologies.

Earlier this month, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan was in India and also met Doval. The two sides regularly discuss cooperation on areas including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, semiconductors, defence and space.

“We have an iCET framework; it is led by the NSA. So, we’ll take it up through that channel,” the official cited above said. “MeitY has done an assessment, NSA has done an assessment…everyone is assessing what the implications are, what it implies, and so on. It’s not an immediate crisis, we should be able to manage. But, as we go along, it’s more important to (raise this).”

As per the new US directive, India won’t be able to import more than 50,000 GPUs from the US in a year and even at the country level India will need a licence. The government is currently sourcing close to 10,000 GPUs under the India AI Mission. The number may go up in the future.

ET had reported on January 15 that the rule may increase compliance complexities for companies like Reliance Industries, which recently placed an order for Nvidia GPUs. It could put data centre providers such as Tata Communications, Yotta Data Services, E2E Networks and Ctrl S-which are expanding to offer AI cloud computing-at a disadvantage relative to US rivals.

Uncertainty over licences and trade negotiations could challenge India’s ambitions for large-scale AI hardware deployment, the official said. The regulations divide the world into three groups-the first comprising 20 countries including Australia, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland have unrestricted access to AI chips, while 20 others including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran will have no access.