US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on 3 September described India as an 'extraordinary opportunity' for artificial intelligence cooperation, saying Washington and New Delhi are actively working to build an integrated AI technology stack together. The remarks came at the close of the G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, marking one of the clearest public articulations yet of US intent to embed India into its global AI architecture.

What Lutnick Said

'India is an extraordinary opportunity, and we are working together, as I said, to try to build that AI stack together,' Lutnick told reporters after the two-day ministerial concluded. He outlined a model in which individual countries — including India — could develop national champions in specific segments of the AI value chain while anchoring to American frontier models and technology companies.

'The idea is the frontier models are clearly American models,' Lutnick said, adding that Washington's goal is to integrate its AI stack with national systems so that it can 'succeed globally.'

The Carolina Principles and G20 Consensus

Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and science advisor to the President, said the ministerial concluded with agreement on the Carolina Principles for Emerging Technology — a framework designed to guide governments through the discovery, development, and deployment of new technologies.

'The Carolina Principles, which we all agree to here at the G20, reflect the common features of the innovation lifecycle across all emerging technologies,' Kratsios said. The principles call on governments to invest in foundational research, strengthen commercialisation pathways, encourage trusted adoption, and apply existing sector-specific rules where appropriate — reserving new regulation only for genuinely novel issues.

Lutnick noted that achieving consensus among all G20 members required extensive negotiations, acknowledging that geopolitical considerations routinely complicate multilateral agreement. 'When you bring global leaders together, there's always lots of politics,' he said.

AI in Science and the American Exports Push

Kratsios underscored the growing role of AI in scientific research, arguing that governments must push their scientific communities to absorb the technology into core workflows. 'Something that we shared with all the G20 nations, I think is very applicable to India is this fundamental belief that we have to sort of push our science community to absorb AI into what they do to work,' he said. He cited chemistry, mathematics, physics, and materials science as fields ripe for AI-driven transformation.

Kratsios also highlighted the Trump administration's American AI Exports Program, which is intended to make US chips, models, and applications available to partner nations. 'We have the very best chips, we have the very best models, we have the very best applications, and we wanna make those available to all of our partners, friends, and allies all around the world,' he said.

India-US Tech Partnership in Context

India and the United States have steadily deepened cooperation across artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum technology, telecommunications, and scientific research in recent years, with technology emerging as a central pillar of their broader strategic partnership. Lutnick's framing of India as an 'extraordinary opportunity' — rather than simply a market — signals a shift toward treating New Delhi as a co-architect of the US-led AI ecosystem, not merely an end-user. How that translates into concrete agreements on data governance, chip access, and model licensing will be the real measure of the partnership's depth.