



New Delhi’s AI Impact Summit should get more ambitious: Aim for substance beyond the spectacle
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Governments love global summits. They signal ambition, draw CEOs and leaders, and create the impression of shaping the future rather than chasing it.
India’s ongoing Artificial Intelligence (AI) Impact Summit fits that template. New Delhi has sought to position it as a platform to cement AI leadership across the Global South—developing economies that seek both access to AI and strategic autonomy. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared in an X post: “Bringing the world together to discuss AI!" Leaders and tech executives are expected to advance AI software and infrastructure partnerships, formalize new collaborations and deepen existing ties.
The agenda includes how AI can accelerate development, from agriculture and healthcare to education and governance, while also confronting the carbon cost of the data centres that power these systems. That said, AI is geopolitically sensitive and commercially guarded, with countries posturing as much as they collaborate. Done well, such gatherings can shape agendas and influence policy.
The UK’s 2023 AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park produced the Bletchley Declaration and made a clear case for the oversight of frontier models. The G-7 Hiroshima AI Process sought voluntary guardrails for advanced AI developers. The EU translated years of debate into its AI Act.
India hopes to embark on a different pathway with inclusive policies anchored in open-source models and digital public infrastructure (DPI). The country sees itself as an emerging AI power, even if it trails the US and China. Stanford’s Global Vibrancy Tool ranked India third in 2025.
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