The UK and India: Bilateral Innovation Collaborations
Innovation is fundamental in driving sustainable growth and ensuring prosperity. Now more than ever, ground-breaking advances in radical technologies and consequent applications open new opportunities for transforming a country’s economy and the everyday lives of its people.
This is true for both a ‘developed’ economy such as the UK and a ‘developing super-power’ such as India.
Responsible development and adoption of new technologies will bring strategic benefits, and both countries are uniquely placed to collaborate to harness the gains being made in revolutionary technologies. New developments in centralised and decentralised based platforms coupled with use of Tokenisation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Contracting and Big Data Analytics are presenting new opportunities in micro-finance, robotics, nano-technology, 3D printing and data management to name a few.
India is making transformative changes to digitise the economy, through programmes such as Digital India, the widespread adoption of Aadhaar, and the introduction of Good and Sales Tax (GST). In the process, it is fast becoming a datarich economy. At the same time, the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy aims to make the UK the world leader in AI technology, building on the pioneering AI expertise in UK universities.
Greater innovation collaboration is the true potential of the UK-India relationship and allowing both countries to explore new paths to invigorating their economies and meeting the aspirations of their peoples.
With insight gained from industry leaders, this report highlights existing innovative collaborations between the UK and India: the role already being played by both governments to catalyse collaborations; the centrality of academic institutions to innovation ecosystems; the steps already taken by both UK and Indian businesses and, importantly, identify areas where we expect to see ground-breaking collaborations in the future.
We also pinpoint what more could be done to stimulate greater joint innovation.
