At the meeting, opened by Director General Roberto Viola and Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney of the Indian Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), the Commission and Indian government representatives agreed to move forward with plans to set up a joint Artificial Intelligence Task Force, hold a high-level Digital Investment Forum, and step up collaboration on High Performance Computing.
Both sides acknowledged that an agreement on establishing a Connectivity Partnership with a strong digital component will be one of the key deliverables at the EU-India Summit on the 8th of May.
The Digital Investment Forum will bring industry leaders together to promote mutual investments in digital markets and leverage the respective strengths of the EU and India to foster collaboration in the Digital Economy. It will also develop structured approaches for EU industry to invest in India and vice-versa.
The vision of the Working Group is to begin organising joint events for start-up and industry that would pave the way for a High-Level Digital Investment Forum conference at the end of the year, strengthening the EU-India ICT Dialogue.
This is part of the EU’s commitment to continue to work with its like-minded partners around the world in achieving common global objective: a green, digital, just and resilient future for the next generation.
Artificial Intelligence, digital platforms, data governance, cybersecurity and networks were also on the agenda. Both sides agreed on increased collaboration on all fronts, particularly in view of a Joint Task Force on AI, as well as a joint workshop on regulation of platforms and investigating the creation of an expert group exchanging regularly on personal data protection, antitrust and taxation of large digital platforms.
The India-EU Joint Working Group is the result of a proposed upgrade joint discussions between the two sides during the EU-India Summit in 2020.