Background:
- India accepted France’s invitation to co-chair the AI Action Summit on February 10-11, 2025, in Paris.
- The summit will focus on AI safety, innovation, public interest AI, future of work, and AI governance.
- Opportunity to amplify the Global South’s voice on AI issues, following previous summits in the UK and South Korea.
- India has been actively engaged in global AI safety discourse and is setting up an AI Safety Institute.
Relevance : GS 2(International Relations), GS 3(Technology)
India’s Strategic Priorities at the Summit
- Democratising Access to AI Resources
- Advocate for equitable access across the AI value chain (data sets, cloud computing, and application platforms).
- India’s domestic AI initiative (computing facility with 18,600 GPUs) sets an example for shared infrastructure.
- Support open-source AI models and push for more flexible cross-border transfer of AI technologies.
- Promote distributed computing and safety tools like watermarking technology.
- Identifying and Prioritising AI Use-Cases for the Global South
- Call for a framework to identify AI use-cases tailored to the unique needs of developing countries.
- Focus on AI applications for local needs: early disease detection, personalized learning platforms, and agricultural productivity tools.
- Propose establishing an AI use-case repository to guide the Global South in prioritising AI applications.
- Contextualising AI Risks and Safety Measures for the Global South
- Emphasize the need to address risks that disproportionately affect developing nations.
- Address cultural erosion due to AI models trained on “western data”.
- Call for evidence collection on AI-related harms specific to the Global South to inform risk mitigation strategies.
- Propose the creation of a repository of AI-related harms to guide future regulatory approaches.
Long-Term Vision
- India’s leadership at the summit will position it as a bridge between AI superpowers and the developing world.
- By advancing Global South priorities, India could become an ideal candidate to host the next AI Action Summit.
- India’s efforts will solidify its role in shaping global AI governance with a focus on equity and inclusivity.
