India, UK ink defence deals worth $800 mn

INDIAANDTHE UK on Thursday announced two defence deals worth over $800 million as they took steps for further collaboration in education, clean energy, artificial intelligence and critical minerals.

- MUKESH JAGOTA

At the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Mumbai, the leaders also unveiled the agreement to proceed via government-togovernment route on an initial supply of Lightweight Multirole Missile(LMM) systems to India.

In parallel, Graphcore, the British chip designer owned by SoftBank Group, said in a blog post that it will invest £1 billion ($1.3 billion) to build infrastructure in India over the next decade, including a new research hub. Graphcore, which is based in Bristol, plans to open the research facility in Bengaluru that will create 500 jobs, the company said.

The government has set up a ₹76,000 crore fund to attract international chipmakers. Two of the country’s biggest projects include an $11 billion wafer fabrication site by Tata Group in partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing and a roughly $3 billion assembly and testing facility by US-based Micron Technology.