India-France Strategic Partnership Comes Of Age

It is a relationship that is present in some of the most important areas of India’s national endeavor: the defence, civil nuclear, and space sectors. These are all areas in which there is a history of very close and fruitful collaboration between the two countries, and are also areas where there is active collaboration and discussions ongoing. On a lot of regional issues, India and France have very similar approaches. France is a resident power in the Indo-Pacific, and that creates another very rich vein of possibilities for India and France to cooperate with each other.

Collaboration In High-Tech

While the US has been India’s partner in the West for high-tech collaboration, France is emerging as the trusted partner in this sector. This February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron jointly inaugurated the India-France Year of Innovation 2026, calling for expanded and diversified cooperation in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), innovation, research, technology, digital technology and cyberspace, health, culture, economy, educational links, and people-to-people ties.

Building on the Horizon 2047 Roadmap and the shared innovation journey of the two countries, India and France recognise innovation as a central driver of economic resilience, sustainable development, strategic autonomy, and technological and industrial sovereignty. Both sides agree that a strengthened innovation partnership will help unlock the full innovation potential of the two countries and contribute to solutions for global challenges.

The two sides recognise that India’s vision of Viksit Bharat 2047 and France’s ambition under France 2030 provide strong convergences for building a future-oriented innovation partnership, paving the way for new investment opportunities in disruptive innovations. 

During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to France last week, India and France adopted the India-France Innovation Roadmap 2030 as a framework to guide their collaborative efforts towards advancing co-development in critical and emerging technologies, strengthening trusted technology ecosystems, deepening academic and research mobility, and delivering concrete outcomes for people, the planet, and shared prosperity.

Trusted AI

The roadmap consists of certain key elements. Both countries have agreed to make 'trusted AI' a central pillar of their innovation partnership. Both sides will work together to promote safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems that are aligned with democratic values and human rights, prevent discrimination and the dissemination of misinformation, and support the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They will encourage cooperation between regulators, standards bodies, and technical experts to advance interoperable, risk-based approaches to AI governance, including for frontier and generative models, while ensuring that innovation and national development are not stifled. India and France have also agreed to deepen their cooperation on child safety online as a priority of their AI partnership. 

India and France have recognised the centrality of privacy-preserving data-sharing frameworks to unlock the full potential of AI and data-driven innovation while safeguarding fundamental rights. India’s Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA) and France’s own work on trusted data spaces and health data platforms offer complementary strengths that can support secure, consent-based data flows for research, healthcare, and public services.

People-to-people links remain a weak link in the otherwise robust partnership. Both sides now recognize that investment in STEM education, research partnerships, mobility of talent, and institutional collaboration will play a critical role in preparing future generations to address global challenges. In this regard, both sides reaffirmed the importance of strengthening mutual recognition frameworks for higher education and professional qualifications. Such cooperation would support greater academic mobility, facilitate dual-degree programmes and doctoral co-supervision arrangements, and contribute significantly towards strengthening the long-term talent and knowledge partnership between India and France.

Several institutions from India and France have agreed to collaborate on academic mobility

Both countries have recognised that closer collaboration between governments, industries, startups, universities, and research institutions will be essential for fostering innovation-led growth and building resilient and trusted supply chains in strategic sectors. France and India will establish an aeronautical training campus in Kanpur in partnership with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), in order to develop and share their training offerings in this prominent and strategic sector.

There is also a potential for the India-France InnoXchange Bridge as a bilateral startup and innovation exchange initiative aimed at establishing a dedicated research and entrepreneurship corridor between the two countries. Both sides intended to explore ways for further interactions between Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) ecosystems.

Defence & Indo-Pacific Partnership 

The defence industry collaboration between India and France has gained momentum in recent years like never before. Delhi and Paris have agreed to intensify joint research, co-design, co-development, and co-production of advanced defence platforms, including in the field of air, naval, and land systems, and emerging dual-use technologies, in line with the ambitious Defence Industrial Roadmap agreed in 2024. The two sides will constitute a Joint Advanced Technology Development Group to explore opportunities to co-develop emerging and critical technologies in identified niche areas to retain a competitive military edge and mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities.

Given the strong presence of France in the Indo-Pacific region, India and France are committed to a free, open, prosperous, and rules-based Indo-Pacific region and are eying closer collaboration in the Indo-Pacific region. The two countries will enhance engagement under the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) and will strengthen cooperation in the Indian Ocean Rim Association under India’s Chairship. There are joint initiatives in the region, including recent new solar energy trainings in countries in the Indo-Pacific region through the International Solar Alliance (ISA) with both Indian and French funding, as well as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructures (CDRI) and the AFD Group to reinforce disaster resilience in third countries. There is the Indo-Pacific Triangular Development Cooperation (IPTDC) aimed at supporting climate and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)-focused projects from third countries of the Indo-Pacific, with the two sides having jointly identified projects in the fields of digital startups, health, and digital public infrastructure to be implemented together.

(The writer is a commentator on geopolitics and geoeconomics. Views expressed are personal.)