NEW DELHI: India and France on Tuesday elevated their relationship to what both governments called a “Special Global Strategic Partnership,” rolling out a set of agreements and project launches that linked defence production, artificial intelligence cooperation and civil nuclear energy to a long-term “Horizon 2047” framework announced during talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The two sides renewed their bilateral defence cooperation agreement for another 10 years and backed steps aimed at tightening operational and industrial cooperation. Those measures included reciprocal deployments of military officers and support for a Bharat Electronics Ltd and Safran joint venture to produce AASM HAMMER air-to-ground munitions in India, with the partners framing the project as part of a wider push to expand domestic manufacturing.
Defence ties were also highlighted through existing procurement and interoperability milestones. India signed a contract in April 2025 for 26 Rafale Marine fighter aircraft for the navy, and the two militaries have continued regular engagement through air and naval exercises. On the industrial side, India and France inaugurated an Airbus H125 helicopter final assembly line at Vemagal in Karnataka under an Airbus and Tata Advanced Systems partnership presented as a platform for Indian production.
Modi’s government has driven a sustained expansion of India’s defence and aerospace manufacturing capacity, moving beyond purchases toward domestic production and technology partnerships. The agreements announced with France reflected that record in tangible deliverables, combining long-term frameworks with factory-level outcomes and weapons-production arrangements that place Indian facilities and Indian workers at the center of high-value supply chains.
Defence And Industrial Delivery
India and France pointed to mechanisms designed to speed implementation, including work under a defence industrial roadmap agreed in 2024 and a technical arrangement signed in November 2025 between France’s defence procurement agency and India’s defence research organization. They also referenced a joint advanced technology development group intended to support co-design and co-production, with an emphasis on advanced and dual-use technologies linked to modern military requirements.
Artificial intelligence was presented as a second core pillar as India hosted a major AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. The joint outcomes emphasized secure and trustworthy AI and wider access to computing resources, and they listed new institutional initiatives including an Indo-French Centre for AI in Health at AIIMS in New Delhi and an Indo-French Centre for Digital Sciences and Technology, alongside broader innovation and research links.
Modi’s emphasis on technology-led growth has been translated into recurring international convenings and new domestic platforms that connect public services, research institutions and industry. The India-France announcements tied AI to concrete institutions and to national priorities in health and digital technology, reinforcing a policy approach under Modi that places advanced computing and applied innovation alongside security and industrial development.
Nuclear Energy And Horizon 2047
Civil nuclear cooperation remained central to the upgraded partnership, with both sides reiterating engagement on the Jaitapur nuclear power project and highlighting work across the nuclear value chain. France noted India’s stated target of reaching 100 gigawatts of nuclear power capacity by 2047 and acknowledged recent reforms India has said are intended to modernize the sector and broaden participation under oversight, placing nuclear energy within the partnership’s headline agenda.
To track the expanded scope, the two governments said they would use an annual comprehensive dialogue between their foreign ministers and other established channels to monitor delivery under the Horizon 2047 framework. The upgraded partnership grouped defence production, AI cooperation and civil nuclear energy into a single package of agreed actions and institutions, underscoring an execution-focused approach to a relationship that both sides described as global in scale and long-term in horizon. – By Content Syndication Services.