Washington DC, Feb. 20 -- The US Department of State announced the launch of a competitive process to award up to USD 200 million in foreign assistance funding to support programs to accelerate the deployment of secure, high-quality, and affordable handheld smartphone devices across the Indo-Pacific region.

According to a statement, the US State Department seeks innovative proposals to improve the competitiveness of next-generation smartphones in the Indo-Pacific region running on trusted operating systems (Android/iOS) through the Edge AI Package. This will ensure that the next billion internet usersare integrated into an open, interoperable, and innovation-forward software ecosystem.

This initiative accelerates the Pax Silica vision o...