Context: Under India’s 2026 BRICS Chairship, the Ministry of MSME successfully convened the 2nd SME Working Group Meeting under the BRICS PartNIR track.
About The BRICS Partnership on the New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR):
What It Is?
- The BRICS Partnership on the New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR) is a structured, high-level cooperation framework designed to guide BRICS member nations through the economic and technological shifts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0).
- It focuses on unifying industrial capabilities, digital systems, and sustainable practices across the expanded bloc.
Established In:
- PartNIR was formally established in 2021 to create an institutional mechanism within the BRICS framework.
Aim:
- The partnership aims to accelerate digital transformation, maximize industrial productivity, ensure technological independence and integrate micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) into regional and global value chains while driving a transition toward a green, circular economy.
Key Pillars and Priority Focus Areas:
The PartNIR track operates across six highly integrated priority themes, each tied to specific strategic outputs:
- SME Digitalization and Technology Access
- Targeted Support: Structuring a dynamic BRICS SME Work Plan that updates support networks and recalculates operational strategies following the addition of new BRICS member states.
- AI Integration: Deploying AI and digital tools as equalizers to help small businesses automate workflows, optimize resources, and secure market intelligence.
- Capacity Building: Developing industry-ready manpower and setting up regional digital B2B platforms to expand market access.
- Sovereign AI for Digital Industrialization
- Technological Autonomy: Mitigating the monopolistic digital infrastructure and pricing control held by large multinational corporations.
- Foundational Models: Co-developing foundational open-source Generative AI models tailored specifically to national languages and distinct cultural frameworks of the BRICS nations.
- Shared Infrastructure: Creating shared computing, data storage, and deep-learning processing facilities specifically optimized for heavy industrial applications.
- Bioindustry and Global Supply Chains
- Green Chemistry: Integrating biotechnology with manufacturing to leverage local biomass for the production of green polymers, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.
- Biomapping: Facilitating inter-institutional cooperation for synthetic biology and the biomapping of genetic resources to establish industrial biorefining parks.
- Circular Economy Practices
- Resource Optimization: Building a coordinated framework to scale up eco-design, remanufacturing, industrial recycling, and waste reuse.
- Decarbonization: Actively establishing a dedicated Circular Economy Working Group to map out sustainable consumption models that accelerate green job creation.
- Intelligent Manufacturing and Robotics
- Precision Production: Scaling up the adoption of IoT, robotics, and advanced automation to lower operational costs and elevate manufacturing quality across emerging markets.
