On May 20, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan, and President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. of the United States, met for the third in-person Quad Leaders’ Summit.
In a Joint Leaders’ Statement following the Summit, it was announced that the Quad will partner with the government of Palau to establish a deployment of Open RAN, the first in the Pacific. The goal of this initiative is to modernize Palau’s national mobile network, establish an Open RAN deployment in partnership with local stakeholders, and support its sustainable operation. As part of the agreement, the United States Trade and Development Agency will fund a technical assistance grant to scope the size and scale of the project, the Australian Government will support the project, and Quad partners may provide further support.
The Quad leaders also welcomed the release of the Open RAN Security Report outlining cybersecurity considerations associated with using Open RAN as an approach to developing network architecture. The report notes that Open RAN offers important cybersecurity advantages, that risks sometimes attributed to Open RAN are common to traditional RAN deployments as well, and that these risks can be mitigated and managed through the recommendations presented in the report. The report will inform Quad members’ domestic and shared approaches to Open RAN security priorities and will also serve as a global resource to support adoption of open, interoperable, and trusted network architectures.
And a final announcement of note: the Quad countries seek to establish a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) between the export credit agencies of the Quad governments, with the aim of strengthening collaboration for the promotion of trade, financing of trade-enabling projects, economic development, and knowledge-sharing with respect to the export of goods and services.
The MOC acknowledges the importance of the economic development of the Indo-Pacific region and of increasing business opportunities, particularly in the areas of emerging and critical technologies, digital connectivity, social development including gender equality and equity, clean energy power generation and distribution, and critical minerals.
Further detail on the Summit can be found in the Quad Leaders’ Summit Fact Sheet.