India and Japan have taken a significant step forward in their bilateral technology cooperation by holding their first-ever Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategic Dialogue in Mumbai, signalling a strong commitment to align policies, talent, and industry for a long-term strategic partnership in AI.
The high-level meeting was co-chaired by Amit A. Shukla, Joint Secretary (Cyber Diplomacy) at India’s Ministry of External Affairs, and Hanada Takahiro, Deputy Assistant Minister for Cyber Security at Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Senior officials from both sides discussed expanding collaboration across the entire AI stack — including software, hardware, and industrial applications.
This dialogue builds directly on the India-Japan AI Cooperation Initiative announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during their bilateral summit in 2025. The initiative positions AI as one of the central pillars of India-Japan relations for the next decade.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), both countries emphasised the importance of policy convergence to create compatible regulatory frameworks that would facilitate cross-border innovation and deployment of AI technologies. “Both countries reaffirmed their commitment to jointly navigate the challenges and opportunities over the next decade to bring our countries and peoples of the next generation closer together than ever before,” the MEA statement said.
Discussions went beyond traditional software collaboration to focus on practical industrial use cases. The two sides agreed to work towards building a “robust, innovative and trustworthy AI ecosystem.”
Key areas of cooperation include:
Joint research and development projects
Academic exchanges and talent development
Collaborative industry initiatives
Greater international mobility for AI professionals
The dialogue also covered global AI governance, with both nations agreeing to coordinate on policy formulation and actively engage in multilateral forums.
Officials highlighted the complementary strengths of the two countries — India’s massive scale and digital public infrastructure combined with Japan’s renowned industrial precision and quality standards — as a powerful foundation to help shape global norms for human-centric AI.
Both India and Japan have committed to sustained high-level engagement to translate this strategic dialogue into concrete outcomes, positioning their AI partnership as a major driver of innovation, economic growth, and technological leadership in the coming decade.
