A new partnership between the UK and India is aiming to enhance innovation and investment across the entire life cycle of critical minerals.
CPI and the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) at the University of Cambridge are collaborating with partners in the unique UK-India initiative, which will also establish an observatory to monitor supply chains and material flows of critical minerals from mines to electric vehicles.
The partnership was announced after the UK Foreign Secretary, Rt Hon Mr David Lammy, visited India to recognise the strengthening partnership between the two countries through the launch of the UK-India Technology Security Initiative.
This initiative builds upon the ambitious agenda set out in the India-UK Roadmap 2030 and will sharpen the countries’ collaboration in critical and emerging technologies across priority sectors including advanced materials, semiconductors, and critical minerals. It will reinforce existing collaborative efforts, broaden the mandates of existing mechanisms, and establish new mechanisms for cooperation.
Critical minerals – like lithium, copper, nickel, and cobalt – are crucial for modern technology and the global economy, particularly in high-tech industries and clean energy. They’re essential for bolstering national security, global competitiveness, industrial resilience, and sustainability. The UK and India recognise that urgent action is required to ensure responsible mining, refining and recycling of critical minerals to enable the transition to net zero.
Together with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, IfM will establish an observatory to facilitate collaboration among leading academics, innovators, and industry by sharing supply chain data.
The observatory will aim to create an industrial data infrastructure for the UK and India. This will enable the identification of risks, opportunities for recycling, and areas with shortages. It will offer recommendations to strengthen global supply chains and minimise disruptions in both the UK and India. Additionally, it aims to test new technologies, like personalised AI, to ensure stable supply chains and promote trade between the two countries. Lastly, it will improve critical minerals capabilities through increasing knowledge sharing around extraction and refining.
CPI’s role in the partnership is to identify industrial challenges and launch an Innovation Sprint programme to find greener ways to extract and purify critical minerals by developing new manufacturing technologies.
Professor Tim Minshall, Head of IfM, said: “Given the global challenges related to critical minerals affecting all nations, this programme is extremely important and timely. This observatory will play a key role in ensuring that technological innovation can be achieved in a way that is resilient, secure and sustainable. We are delighted that this programme is being taken forward as an international partnership, reflecting the fact that addressing critical mineral challenges requires an international approach.”
Dr Arun Harish, Chief Strategy Officer at CPI, said: “Partnerships such as these are going to provide the blueprint for how we solve some of the biggest industrial challenges. By working closely with colleagues in India, we can find opportunities that benefit both nations’ energy security and crucially provide some much-needed answers on how we can move sustainably away from fossil fuels. This work will encourage investment in key sectors and eventually help provide economic opportunity for people in the UK and India as we work together to develop the industries of the future.”
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