India and UK critical minerals partnership

A UK-India initiative aims to enhance innovation and investment across the entire life of critical minerals.

The Institute of Manufacturing (IfM) at the University of Cambridge and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) will establish an observatory to monitor supply chains and material flows of critical minerals from mines to electric vehicles.

The partnership involving the technology centre CPI was announced after the UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy visited India for the UK-India Technology Security Initiative.

An industrial data infrastructure for both countries will identify risks, opportunities for recycling and areas with shortages. It will offer recommendations such as new technologies and share knowledge around extraction and refiniing.

CPI will identify industrial challenges and launch an Innovation Spring programme for more sustainable ways to extract and purify critical minerals by developing new manufacturing technologies.

'At IIT Bombay, we are excited to collaborate on the UK-India Critical Mineral Supply Chain Observatory, a project that addresses a key area of global importance. Leveraging our expertise in materials chemistry, we will focus on assessing and advancing extraction, refining, and recycling technologies for critical minerals,' notes Professor Ramaswamy Murugavel at IIT Bombay.

Head of IfM Professor Tim Minshall says, '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'

This builds on theIndia-UK Roadmap 2030 and is designed to sharpen collaboration in key and emerging technologies across priority sectors including advanced materials, semiconductors and critical minerals.