The U.S. and India agreed to move ahead with the construction of six nuclear reactors in India by an American company, the first such move since the countries signed a landmark civil nuclear deal in 2008. The breakthrough capped a wide-ranging White House meeting between President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who are seeking closer cooperation as Washington wants to boost New Delhi’s role in counterbalancing China.

Under the new atomic-power agreement, Nuclear Power Corporation of India and Westinghouse Electric Co., a U.S. unit of Toshiba Corp., will begin engineering and site-design work for the reactors, though the final contract won’t be completed until June 2017.

The ability for U.S. companies to invest in nuclear-power plants in India has been a point of contention. At issue was a 2010 law passed in India that would make U.S. firms liable for accidents at power plants they help build.

They committed to strengthen cooperation against threats from extremist groups, such as Al Qaeda, the militant Islamic State group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, D Company and their affiliates, including through deepened collaboration on UN terrorist designations. In this context, they directed their officials to identify specific new areas of collaboration at the next meeting of US–India Counter-terrorism Joint Working Group.