The alliance is aimed at scaling up industry partnerships and production in the Indo-Pacific region
| Photo Credit: Reuters
India and the United States are scaling up their cooperation in underwater domain awareness (UDA), a key focus for both countries, with a new initiative, the Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance (ASIA), announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Washington.
The alliance is aimed at scaling up industry partnerships and production in the Indo-Pacific region,and has identified a range of UDA technologies for co-production in India, according to official sources.
Maritime domain awareness and, increasingly, underwater domain awareness have become key focus areas both at a bilateral level and among the Quad group — comprising India, Australia, Japan, and the U.S. — especially given the rapid expansion of the Chinese Navy and its increasing presence in the Indian Ocean region.
Sensitive technologies
The U.S. has offered a few co-production and co-development opportunities for UDA technologies on a commercial basis, sources in the know said. “India is the very first country with whom the U.S. defence industry has offered to work with on these sensitive technologies,” a source said.
These technologies include the Sea Picket autonomous surveillance system with sonar acoustic array produced by Thayer Mahan; the Wave Glider unmanned surface vehicle systems; low frequency active towed sonar; multistatic active (MSA) sonobuoys; large diameter autonomous undersea vehicles produced by Andruil; and the Triton autonomous underwater and surface vehicle produced by Ocean Aero.
The joint statement issued after the talks between Mr. Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump said that the leaders pledged to accelerate defence technology cooperation across space, air defence, missile, maritime and undersea technologies, with the U.S. announcing a review of its policy on releasing fifth-generation fighters and undersea systems to India.
Partnership talks
Discussions are ongoing between the concerned U.S. companies and potential Indian partners regarding the identified technologies, sources said.
For the Wave Glider unmanned surface vehicle systems, negotiations are ongoing between Boeing’s Liquid Robotics and Sagar Defence Engineering for the co-production of 60 Wave Glider platforms in India. Similarly, for the low frequency active towed sonar, discussions are ongoing with L3 Harris for co-development with Bharat Electronics Limited.
For the MSA sonobuoys, a high-end technology which can be used to track submarines in the deep seas and oceans, India and the U.S. had announced a “first-of-its-kind partnership on co-production” in January. As part of this, Ultra Maritime’s sonobuoys will be co-produced in India in partnership with the defence public sector undertaking Bharat Dynamics Limited. As previously reported by The Hindu, the final assembly of the sonobuoys will be done in India and an operational production line is expected to be ready in 2027.
Breaking new ground
According to the joint statement, the leaders also pledged to elevate military cooperation across all domains – air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace – through enhanced training, exercises, and operations, incorporating the latest technologies. In this regard, they committed to break new ground to support and sustain the overseas deployments of the U.S. and Indian militaries in the Indo-Pacific, including enhanced logistics and intelligence sharing, as well as arrangements to improve force mobility for joint humanitarian and disaster relief operations along with other exchanges and security cooperation engagements.
At the Quad level, the statement said that as India looks to host the group’s summit later this year, the leaders will activate new Quad initiatives on “shared airlift capacity” to support the civilian response to natural disasters, and “maritime patrols” to improve interoperability.
While these technologies improve UDA, various other military platforms that India has procured from the U.S. augment its anti-submarine warfare capabilities in the Indian Ocean region, as well the interoperability among Quad partners as they have commonality. These platforms include 12 P-8Is which are already in service; 24 MH-60R multi-role helicopters being inducted; 15 MQ-9B Sea Guardian high-altitude long-endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that were contracted as part of a deal for 31 MQ-9Bs last October, with deliveries to begin from January 2029; and six more P-8Is that the leaders signed off on during the discussions earlier this week.
Published – February 15, 2025 09:34 pm IST