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The Delhi AI Impact Summit, a high-profile gathering of global leaders in technology, politics, science, academia, and advocacy, is set to delve into crucial discussions on steering the artificial intelligence revolution. However, the summit’s agenda faces potential overshadowing by prominent figures and geopolitical undercurrents. Bill Gates, initially facing uncertainty regarding his attendance due to an apparent scheduling conflict, has had his participation confirmed by the Gates Foundation, with assurances that he will deliver his keynote address as planned. This situation highlights a recurring challenge for such summits: the risk of their core objectives being diluted by external events and political dynamics.
Historically, the loudest voices in the AI discourse have predominantly originated from the West, particularly the United States and Europe. Therefore, the significance of a major summit hosted in the Global South, a region at risk of being marginalized in the escalating AI race, cannot be overstated. While Western powers have been actively vying for dominance, as evidenced by the recent jockeying for position in Paris and US Vice President JD Vance’s assertive declaration of America’s non-negotiable leadership, the atmosphere in Delhi is anticipated to be more measured. India, a nation that has played a foundational role in developing the technologies underpinning AI but has not reaped commensurate rewards compared to the affluent West, is poised to offer a distinct perspective.
India boasts significant AI hubs in cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai, supported by a vast pool of tech talent and substantial infrastructure investments from industry giants such as Google, Nvidia, and Amazon. Yet, the human cost of this technological advancement remains a pressing concern. Journalist Karen Hao, in her book "Empire of AI," recounts the experience of an unnamed Indian firm contracted for content moderation of AI-generated images. This work, she claims, involved employees scrutinizing disturbing imagery to determine which should be removed from public view. The disparity in compensation for such essential roles is stark. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for an AI data trainer in Chennai is approximately 480,000 rupees, translating to less than £4,000 ($5,000) annually. This figure stands in sharp contrast to the valuation of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which exceeds $500 billion, underscoring the imbalanced distribution of wealth and recognition within the AI ecosystem.
The 2026 International AI Safety Report underscores this global divide, noting that while AI adoption exceeds 50% in some countries, it likely remains below 10% across much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This digital exclusion is further exacerbated by the limitations of existing AI technologies in catering to diverse linguistic landscapes. Major Western AI chatbots do not fully support all of India’s 22 official languages, let alone the hundreds of dialects spoken within the country. ChatGPT and Claude currently offer support for roughly half of these languages, while Google’s Gemini supports nine. Professor Pushpak Bhattacharyya from IIT Mumbai highlighted this issue last summer, telling the BBC that the absence of technology capable of understanding and speaking these languages excludes millions from the digital revolution, particularly in critical sectors like education, governance, healthcare, and banking.
In response, India is actively developing its own sovereign AI platforms under the AI Mission initiative. However, progress has been comparatively slow. While US and Chinese AI models like DeepSeek and ByteDance are rapidly releasing new versions, many of India’s indigenous AI projects are still in development. The Indian government’s budget of $1.2 billion for this initiative pales in comparison to the substantial financial resources of multi-billion dollar corporations. A senior Indian government official confided prior to Christmas that India’s primary interest lies not in geopolitical power struggles surrounding AI, but in leveraging the technology for its own economic advancement. Rajan Anandan, managing director at Peak XV, a prominent Indian tech investor, stated that for India, AI represents "more than technology; it is about economic transformation, digital sovereignty and building capability at scale," adding that there is a "strong sense of momentum and confidence within the country."
This shift in focus could position the United States in a less dominant role than it might prefer. Professor Gina Neff, an AI ethics expert from Queen Mary University London, suggests that American influence may be curtailed by the summit’s proposed bottom-up, Global South-centric approach to AI governance, which prioritizes people, planet, and progress. Jeni Tennison, executive director of the think tank Connected by Data, argues for a collaborative governmental effort to shape a more inclusive, democratic, and people-centered vision of AI, particularly in the face of overwhelming corporate power. She believes that India, as the world’s largest "middle power," is uniquely positioned to facilitate this transformation.
AI expert Henry Ajder echoes this sentiment, expressing hope for pragmatic efforts to move beyond a fragmented legislative landscape towards meaningful consensus on addressing AI harms, whether intentional or otherwise. Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK, advocates for compelling AI companies to disclose the inner workings of their products. This transparency, she argues, would enable others to develop their own versions, implement improvements, and conduct thorough scrutiny of the technology. Brock believes that for the summit to yield tangible benefits for the Global South, universal access to AI is paramount, which can only be achieved through open access. While some progress has been made in this direction, many AI giants continue to keep crucial aspects, such as their training data, confidential.
Privately, some AI experts have expressed concerns that safety and responsibility may be slipping down the agenda. Following the inaugural AI Safety Summit in the UK in 2023, the word "safety" was conspicuously omitted from its title. One expert, citing a lack of confidence in the summit’s potential for meaningful outcomes, has chosen not to attend the Delhi event. British computer scientist Professor Dame Wendy Hall, who is attending the summit, shares these reservations, fearing that the event will not produce significant discussions on minimizing the dangers posed by AI. She remarked, "It’s important that we go, but my expectations of anything useful coming out of it are very low." The push for open access and transparency in AI development, championed by figures like Amanda Brock, presents a potential avenue for India to challenge the dominance of established tech giants and assert its own vision for the future of artificial intelligence.
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