United States And India Sign Pax Silica Declaration.

New Delhi; February 2026: Today, on February 20th 2026, the United States and India signed the Pax Silica Declaration, hailing a growing geopolitical consensus that economic security is national security, and national security is economic security. India brings to Pax Silica a deep talent pool, processing and refining capacity for critical minerals, investments in AI infrastructure, and an understanding of the importance of trusted technologies.

The declaration reflecting India’s joining of Pax Silica was signed by US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg, and Indian Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Mr. S. Krishnan. The United States and India affirmed their commitment to promote pro-innovation regulations that foster AI innovation and promote the rapid buildout of secure and trusted AI ecosystems in both countries.

The US-India Pax Silica Declaration is a critical step towards realising the ambitious vision President Trump and Prime Minister Modi outlined for US-India relations under the Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology (TRUST) initiative.

The United States welcomed India as the tenth Pax Silica signatory. It joins fellow signatories Australia, Israel, Japan, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. Additional members are expected to follow.

The United States and India also formalised a landmark commitment to a pro-innovation regulatory framework. This partnership is particularly significant as a strategic counter-narrative to the rising global trend of restrictive, fear-based regulatory regimes. While some regions move toward stifling AI through over-regulation and trepidation, the United States and India are doubling down on free enterprise and private sector creativity. By facilitating cross-border investments and lowering barriers for startups and builders, this alliance can ensure that the world’s oldest and largest democracies remain the primary architects of the AI revolution, fostering an era of prosperity, security, and technological optimism.

PAX SILICA –

Pax Silica is a positive-sum partnership of nations who want to remain competitive and prosperous. Pax Silica is the Department of State’s flagship effort on AI and supply chain security, advancing new economic security consensus among allies and trusted partners.

Jacob Helberg, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs had asserted, “If the 20th century ran on oil and steel, the 21st century runs on compute and the minerals that feed it. This historic declaration hails a new economic security consensus ensuring aligned partners build the AI ecosystem of tomorrow, from energy and critical minerals to high-end manufacturing and models”.

Pax Silica Declaration:

We affirm our shared commitment to advance mutual prosperity, technological progress, and economic security for our peoples.

We recognise that a reliable supply chain is indispensable to our mutual economic security. We also recognise that artificial intelligence (AI) represents a transformative force for our long-term prosperity and that trustworthy systems are essential to safeguarding our mutual security and prosperity.

We recognise that the technological revolution in AI is accelerating, increasingly reorganising the world economy, and reshaping global supply chains. We believe that economic value and growth will flow through and across all levels of the global AI supply chain, driving historic opportunity and demand for energy, critical minerals, manufacturing, technological hardware, infrastructure, and new markets not yet invented.

In this spirit, we declare our shared vision to deepen our economic partnership through shared efforts on investment security practices, infrastructure, and incentives. 

We encourage efforts to partner on strategic stacks of the global technology supply chain, including, but not limited to, software applications and platforms, frontier foundation models, information connectivity and network infrastructure, compute and semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, transportation logistics, minerals refining and processing, and energy.

We believe in mobilising the immense creative and financial power of private industry and entrepreneurship to make our citizens more prosperous, our nations stronger, and our supply chains more secure. We seek scalable approaches and solutions to supply chain security by mobilising the complementary industrial and technological strengths of strategic companies and firms from our respective economies.

We support the promotion of a shared and trusted ecosystem of AI developers and vendors to renew legacy industries and unlock new markets and services for the lasting prosperity of our peoples.

We believe that true economic security requires reducing excessive dependencies and forging new connections with reliable partners and suppliers committed to fair market practices. At the same time, we will endeavour to provide access to trusted partners to the full stack of technological advancements that are shaping the AI economy.

We understand the importance of addressing non-market practices that undermine innovation and fair competition. We believe that coordination is essential to protect private investment from the market distortions of overcapacity and unfair dumping practices, and to preserve a level playing field for innovation and growth. We understand the importance of cooperation on the enforcement of our respective policies to protect sensitive technologies and critical infrastructure from undue access, influence, or control.  

In this spirit, we intend to further strengthen economic and national security cooperation, including taking complementary actions as appropriate to address non-market policies and practices and enhancing investment security.

We seek to build and deploy trusted information networks, including information and communication technology systems, fibre-optic cables, and data centres. 

Through this cooperation, we pursue a comprehensive economic partnership to build an economic security order based on trust, technological complementarity, shared interests, and a shared commitment to a more prosperous future.

KEY PILLARS OF PAX SILICA –

Definition:

• “Pax” as a historical term denoting peace, stability, and prosperity.
• Applies to the foundations of modern AI and computing.

Strategic Concept:

• U.S. led initiative to build a secure, resilient, innovation-driven technology ecosystem.
• Spanning critical minerals → energy → advanced manufacturing → semiconductors → AI infrastructure → logistics.

Core Objectives:

• Reduce coercive dependencies.
• Partner to secure global tech supply chains, address AI supply chain opportunities and vulnerabilities, and explore joint investment.
• Protect sensitive technologies and build trusted digital infrastructure.

Long Term Framework:

• Unite countries hosting advanced tech companies to unleash the economic potential of the new AI age.
• Establish a durable economic order to drive AI-powered prosperity across partner nations.

Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg at the Joining of India to Pax Silica –

“It is a profound honour to be here in Delhi, at the India AI Impact Forum, to mark a historic milestone in the partnership between the United States and India. Today, we sign the Pax Silica Declaration, a document that is not merely an agreement on paper, but a roadmap for a shared future.

There is a line from antiquity, attributed to Alexander the Great, that famously said that the people of Asia were slaves because they had not learned to pronounce the word “No”.

Alexander viewed himself as a conqueror, speaking to a world of subjects. And after traveling 11,000 miles for eight years, it was in India that Alexander finally met his match and turned around. He did not know India and India said No.

The truth is, both our nations were forged by that very word. Both our nations claimed their freedom by learning to say “No”.

We are the people who looked at a King, oceans away, and refused to quietly acquiesce. We rejected the counsel of polite society and broke centuries of colonial rule to take our destiny into our own hands. That spirit of defiance, that insistence on self-determination, is the fire that burns at the heart of both our democracies.

And today, we are called upon to summon that spirit once again.

For too long, we have allowed the foundations of our economic security to drift. We find ourselves grappling with a global supply chain that is massively overconcentrated. We watch as our friends and allies face daily threats of economic coercion and blackmail, forced to choose between their sovereignty and their prosperity.

We have seen the lights of a great Indian city extinguished by a keystroke from across the border. We have seen our friends denied essential minerals simply because a leader dared to speak her mind.

So today, as we sign the Pax Silica Declaration, we say “No” to weaponised dependency. We say “No” to blackmail. And, together, we say that economic security is national sovereignty.

But we must be precise about what that word means.

There are some who use words like “global governance” and “sovereignty” in the same breath, just like Orwell used “freedom” and “slavery” interchangeably.

America and India are not deceived. Sovereignty does not come from a global bureaucracy. It comes from builders.

It comes from the builders of smelters and oil wells, airplanes and expressways. It comes from the hard-working people who physically build the rails of the future. And through the Joint Statement that we are signing today, the United States and India are affirming our embrace of a pro-innovation approach to AI against those who would constrain it to set us back.

But our fundamental mission is not resistance; it is renewal.

We are forging a supply chain that is a foundation for prosperity. We are building a new architecture that diffuses intelligence, placing the awesome power of AI into the palm of our people’s hands, and unleashing a wave of unprecedented possibility.

From the mines to the models, we are securing the full stack of the future—the minerals deep in the earth, the silicon wafers in our fabs, and the intelligence that will unleash human potential.

Pax Silica is our declaration that the future belongs to those who build. And when free people join forces, we do not wait for the future to be given to us. We build it ourselves.

I want to end by thanking my good friend and colleague, Ambassador Sergio Gor. Sergio. His leadership has been the bridge for this moment. His work to bring our nations closer together is a testament to the vital importance the United States places on this friendship. Sergio, thank you for your service and your energy”.                                                  

Team Maverick.