Australia and India have reached a deal on uranium during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Australia.
The deal, which was reached on Thursday, will see Australian uranium exported to India for use in the nuclear energy industry. Both countries have also agreed to deepen their cooperation in renewables, critical minerals and green hydrogen moving forward.
India has long been interested in Australia’s uranium reserves, Reuters reported, as it seeks to meet a target of 100GW of nuclear energy capacity by 2047. Additionally, Australia is reportedly looking to diversify its trade beyond simply relying on China.
“Australia and India are close partners and even closer friends,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday, after finalising the deal. “The arrangement facilitates Australian uranium exports to India to help increase the share of non-fossil fuel power capacity, providing an additional market for the Australian resources sector.”
Both countries first agreed to nuclear cooperation in 2014, although uranium exports have previously been limited to ensure nuclear fuel is only used for peaceful purposes, rather than warfare.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi added that India’s relationship with Australia had presented “historic opportunities” for both countries – with hopes that Australia’s technology and resources could help India to accelerate its energy transition. This comes as India continues to scale as a global technology hub, with big tech eager to develop AI and data centres in the country.
Nuclear power has long been touted as a promising solution for power-hungry AI data centres, a cleaner, more renewable alternative to fossil fuels. This new deal could see more data centres in India being powered by nuclear.
Australia’s AirTrunk recently announced a US$30 billion investment into India over the next four years to build out 5GW of new data centre capacity across the country. The commitment, backed by Blackstone and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, represents one of the largest digital infrastructure investment programmes currently under consideration in India.
Modi arrived in Australia after visiting Indonesia, where he signed a series of deals on agriculture and defence.
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