As Biden and Modi meet, GE clinches India fighter jet engine deal

Washington wants India to be a strategic counterweight to China and sees India as a critical partnership.

As the GE Aerospace of the United States on Thursday announced the signing of a deal with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited of India to produce fighter jet engines, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after a meeting with President Joe Biden that closer defence cooperation reflected growing trust between the two nations.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between GE Aerospace and HAL is one of the significant outcomes of the Prime Minister’s official state visit to the US. It marks a change in the US policy, which prevented it from sharing advanced defence technologies with a non-NATO country like India.

Modi said that the deal would create jobs in both India and the US.

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The two biggest democracies of the world, India and the US, can contribute towards global peace, stability and prosperity.

“For the partnership between India and the US, even the sky is not the limit,” the Prime Minister said. "The challenges and opportunities facing the world in this century require that India and the US work and lead together,” said Biden, describing the ties between the two nations as "one of the most defining" relationships in the 21st century.

Just hours after Modi and Biden had a private engagement at the White House, GE Aerospace announced the deal, which would pave the way for the US conglomerate and the HAL to jointly produce the F414 jet engines to power the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Mk2 fleet of the Indian Air Force (IAF).

The deal comes amid a renewed push by the US to step up defence cooperation with India with a newfound willingness to share advanced military technologies with the South Asian nation in order to lessen its reliance on Russia. It also signals New Delhi’s keenness to take its ties with the US to a new level amid China’s growing belligerence across the Indo-Pacific region, particularly against India along the disputed boundary between the two nations in the Himalayas.

“This is a historic agreement made possible by our long-standing partnership with India and HAL,” H Lawrence Culp, Jr., the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer of GE, said, adding: “Our F414 engines are unmatched and will offer important economic and national security benefits for both countries as we help our customers produce the highest quality engines to meet the needs of their military fleet.”

Culp, who is also the CEO of GE Aerospace, earlier met Modi soon after the Prime Minister landed in Washington DC on Wednesday.

He later said that the GE was proud to play a role in advancing the vision of Biden and Modi for closer coordination between the two nations.

GE Aerospace is likely to transfer to HAL almost 80 per cent of the GE414 engine’s technologies. The deal will thus end the long history of the US refusing to share advanced technologies with India. The Biden Administration already promised to speed up the process to grant the government approval to GE Aerospace and clearance from the US Congress for the transfer of technologies for joint production of the engine in India.

New Delhi has been over the past few months repeatedly pointing out that India had to rely more on Russia only because the US and the other western nations had declined to share with it advanced military hardware and technologies. The Modi Government has been putting forward the argument in response to criticism over its refusal to join the US and the rest of the West in criticising Russia for its military aggression against Ukraine.

GE in 1986 began working with the Aeronautical Development Agency and HAL to support the development of India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) with F404 engines. GE Aerospace’s F404 and F414 have been part of the development and production programs of LCA Mk1 and LCA Mk2 programs. In total, 75 F404 engines have been delivered and another 99 are on order for LCA Mk1A. Eight F414 engines have been delivered as part of an ongoing development program for the LCA Mk2, the GE stated on Wednesday.

It said that its latest MoU with the HAL will advance GE Aerospace’s earlier commitment to build 99 engines for the IAF as part of the LCA Mk2 program. “It puts the company in a strong position to create a family of products in India, including the F404 engine that currently powers the LCA Mk1 and LCA Mk1A aircraft and GE Aerospace’s selection for the prototype development, testing and certification of the AMCA program with our F414-INS6 engine,” the US-based conglomerate said in a statement, “In addition, GE will continue to collaborate with Indian government on the AMCA Mk2 engine program.”

With more than five million flight hours and eight nations with F414-powered aircraft in operation or on order, the engine continues to exceed goals for reliability and time on the wing. To date, more than 1,600 F414 engines have been delivered globally, it added.