India joins Pax Silica, a U.S.-led critical minerals and electronics supply chain alliance. Understand its significance for UPSC and SSC with full analysis covering geopolitics, economy, and India’s tech strategy.
On February 21, 2026, at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw formally signed India into the Pax Silica Declaration — a U.S.-led technology and supply chain alliance that brings together Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union with the stated goal of building resilient, China-independent supply chains for electronics, semiconductors, and critical minerals. The signing was witnessed by U.S. Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth Jacob Helberg, who has been the principal architect of the grouping since its inaugural summit at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington D.C. in December 2025.
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The name “Pax Silica” — a deliberate echo of “Pax Americana” — signals the alliance’s ambition: to establish a new geopolitical order in the domain of silicon, semiconductors, and the rare earth supply chains that power the modern digital economy. For India, this accession is not merely a diplomatic gesture. It represents a strategic alignment with like-minded democracies on one of the most consequential economic and security questions of the 21st century — who controls the materials and manufacturing capacity that underpin artificial intelligence, defence systems, electric vehicles, and advanced telecommunications infrastructure.
This development must be read alongside India’s broader technology diplomacy including the IndiaAI Mission, the Production Linked Incentive schemes for semiconductors, the India Semiconductor Mission, and the HCL-Foxconn joint venture for North India’s first semiconductor unit inaugurated the same week.
Table of Contents
Five Important Key Points
- India formally joined Pax Silica, a U.S.-led alliance to build resilient supply chains for electronics and critical minerals, alongside Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union.
- The alliance was created in direct response to China’s dominance as the world’s primary supplier of refined rare earth elements, which it has weaponised as a geopolitical lever in trade negotiations.
- U.S. Undersecretary Jacob Helberg referenced alleged Chinese cyberattacks that caused the Mumbai power blackout of October 2020 and China’s rare earth export restrictions targeting Japan to illustrate the threat of “weaponised dependency.”
- India’s membership aligns with its India Semiconductor Mission, the PLI scheme for electronics, and the broader Atmanirbhar Bharat strategy for technology self-reliance.
- The Pax Silica accession must be balanced against India’s strategic autonomy tradition, its non-alignment heritage, and its continued engagement with China as a major trading partner.
What Is Pax Silica and Why Was It Created?
Pax Silica is a multilateral grouping of technologically advanced democracies designed to coordinate supply chain resilience strategies in the semiconductor and critical minerals sectors. Its creation responds to a specific structural vulnerability that the COVID-19 pandemic, the global semiconductor shortage of 2021-23, and China’s export restrictions on gallium and germanium in 2023 made undeniably clear: the global economy’s most critical technological inputs are concentrated in a dangerously small number of countries, with China holding dominant positions across multiple chokepoints.
Critical minerals — including rare earth elements like neodymium, dysprosium, lithium, cobalt, and graphite — are essential for manufacturing semiconductors, EV batteries, wind turbines, fighter jet components, missile guidance systems, and advanced communications equipment. China controls approximately 60% of global rare earth mining and over 85% of global rare earth processing capacity. This concentration gives Beijing extraordinary leverage over the industrial and defence capabilities of countries that depend on these inputs.
The grouping seeks to address this through coordinated investment in alternative mining and processing capacity, harmonised export control frameworks, joint research and development in substitution technologies, and preferential supply arrangements among member states. Jacob Helberg’s reference to the alleged Chinese cyberattack that caused Mumbai’s October 2020 power blackout — attributed to Chinese state actors by a U.S. cybersecurity firm — and to China’s rare earth restrictions targeting Japan after a diplomatic dispute over Taiwan illustrates the security dimension that goes beyond trade economics.
India’s Strategic Context: Why Now?
India’s decision to join Pax Silica at this moment reflects several converging strategic calculations. First, India possesses the world’s fifth largest reserves of rare earth elements, estimated at approximately 6.9 million tonnes according to the United States Geological Survey. India holds significant deposits of monazite (containing thorium and rare earth elements), ilmenite, and other critical minerals, primarily concentrated in coastal states like Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. Despite this natural endowment, India has historically underinvested in rare earth processing and value addition, remaining a raw material exporter rather than a processed mineral supplier.
Second, India’s semiconductor ambitions require reliable access to specialised equipment, advanced materials, and intellectual property that are controlled by Pax Silica member countries. The HCL-Foxconn joint venture for semiconductor manufacturing in Jewar, Uttar Pradesh — with an investment of ₹3,700 crore — represents India’s first serious foray into domestic chip production. But semiconductor manufacturing at scale requires access to high-purity chemicals, precision equipment from countries like Japan and the Netherlands (ASML’s extreme ultraviolet lithography machines being the most critical), and design software from American companies. Membership in Pax Silica facilitates preferential access to these inputs.
Third, India’s foreign policy has been evolving from its classical non-alignment posture towards what External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has called “strategic autonomy” — the ability to engage multiple power centres simultaneously while preserving the freedom to make independent choices. India’s membership in the Quad (with the U.S., Japan, and Australia), its participation in the Chip-4 discussions, and now Pax Silica all indicate a clear tilt toward the democratic technology bloc in the emerging bipolar world of technology governance.
Constitutional and Policy Dimensions: India Semiconductor Mission
The India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), launched in December 2021 under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, provides the policy framework within which Pax Silica membership operates. The mission offers fiscal support of up to 50% of project cost for semiconductor fabs, display fabs, and compound semiconductor manufacturing facilities. The PLI scheme for electronics, with an outlay of ₹40,951 crore, complements this by incentivising large-scale electronics manufacturing.
From a constitutional perspective, technology policy falls under the Union List (Entry 31 — Posts and telegraphs, telephones, wireless, broadcasting) and the Concurrent List in various dimensions, but the strategic decisions regarding critical minerals and semiconductor manufacturing are primarily executive decisions made at the Union level. The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 and the Atomic Minerals Concession Rules, 2016 govern the extraction of critical and atomic minerals, with the Atomic Minerals Directorate under the Department of Atomic Energy having exclusive rights over monazite and other thorium-bearing minerals.
India’s membership in Pax Silica may necessitate legislative or regulatory adjustments, particularly around export control frameworks. Aligning with the U.S. Export Administration Regulations and similar frameworks of Pax Silica members could require amendments to India’s Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992 and the Strategic Goods and Technology list maintained by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade.
Economic Implications: Critical Minerals as the New Oil
The geopolitical contest over critical minerals is often described as the 21st century equivalent of the 20th century contest over oil. Countries that control oil reserves wielded extraordinary geopolitical leverage — a lesson that shaped global politics from the 1973 OPEC crisis through the Gulf Wars to Russia’s use of gas pipelines as a political weapon against Europe. Critical minerals are following the same trajectory, with the added complexity that they are inputs not just for energy but for the entire digital and defence industrial base.
For India’s economy, Pax Silica membership creates several opportunities. It facilitates foreign direct investment in India’s critical minerals sector from member countries — Japan, South Korea, and Canada have all expressed interest in Indian lithium, cobalt, and rare earth deposits. It opens technology transfer possibilities in semiconductor manufacturing. It strengthens India’s position as a preferred destination for supply chain diversification by multinational corporations seeking to reduce their China exposure — a trend accelerated by U.S. restrictions on semiconductor exports to China under the CHIPS and Science Act.
The RBI’s February 2026 bulletin notes that the India-EU Free Trade Agreement and the India-U.S. interim trade arrangement have already triggered a return of foreign portfolio investment to India. Pax Silica, by signalling India’s long-term reliability as a technology supply chain partner, reinforces this positive investment sentiment.
However, there are also economic risks. India’s manufacturing sector currently depends heavily on Chinese inputs — approximately 14% of India’s total imports come from China, including significant quantities of electronic components, solar panels, and chemical inputs. Any sharp deterioration in India-China trade relations triggered by India’s deepening alignment with Pax Silica could create inflationary pressures in the short to medium term until alternative supply chains mature.
Challenges: Balancing Act Between Strategic Autonomy and Alliance Commitment
India’s joining of Pax Silica is not without tensions. The country’s foreign policy tradition — rooted in the principles articulated by Jawaharlal Nehru and institutionalised through the Non-Aligned Movement — has always resisted binding alliance commitments that could constrain India’s freedom of manoeuvre. While Pax Silica is described as a supply chain partnership rather than a military alliance, the geopolitical logic animating it is clearly adversarial toward China, and Beijing will certainly interpret India’s membership in that light.
China remains India’s largest trading partner and a key source of pharmaceutical APIs, electronic components, and machinery. The border tensions since Galwan (2020) have strained the relationship, but economic interdependence persists at a deep structural level. India must manage the signalling effect of Pax Silica membership carefully to avoid precipitating Chinese economic retaliation — in the form of export restrictions on goods India needs — before alternative supply chains are sufficiently developed.
Additionally, the internal governance capacity to operationalise Pax Silica commitments requires strengthening. India’s mining regulatory framework is fragmented across central and state jurisdictions, environmental clearance processes are slow, and the skilled workforce for advanced semiconductor manufacturing is still nascent.
Way Forward
India should leverage Pax Silica membership to negotiate technology transfer agreements for semiconductor manufacturing, secure long-term supply arrangements for equipment and materials, and attract investment into its critical minerals processing sector. Domestically, the government should expedite environmental clearances for strategic mineral projects, invest in geological surveys to fully map India’s rare earth reserves, and develop a dedicated Critical Minerals Mission — similar to the National Mineral Exploration Trust — with adequate funding and inter-ministerial coordination.
Parliament should consider enacting a dedicated Critical Minerals Security Act that establishes a strategic reserve, regulates export of critical minerals, and creates incentives for value-added processing within India, similar to the approach taken by Australia and Canada.
Relevance for UPSC and SSC Examinations
This topic is highly relevant for UPSC GS Paper II (International Relations — India’s foreign policy, technology diplomacy, groupings and alliances) and GS Paper III (Economy — critical minerals, semiconductor industry, PLI schemes, supply chain resilience, technology policy). For GS Paper III, the economic dimensions of critical minerals — their role in EV manufacturing, defence, and AI infrastructure — are directly examinable. The India Semiconductor Mission and related policy frameworks connect to governance and industrial policy questions. For SSC examinations, the names, member countries of Pax Silica, India’s semiconductor mission, and the geopolitical context of rare earth dominance are important current affairs facts. The broader essay themes of “Technology as Geopolitics” and “India’s Strategic Autonomy in a Bipolar World” are enriched significantly by this development.