Context

• Less than three years ago, ChatGPT catapulted artificial intelligence (AI) out of research labs and into living rooms, classrooms, and parliaments.
• The sudden public visibility of AI created waves that leaders could not ignore and in response, global AI summits emerged rapidly, highlighting both the urgency and the uncertainty surrounding this transformative technology.
• When New Delhi hosts the AI Impact Summit in February 2026, the event can transcend symbolic diplomacy.

The Geopolitical Landscape and India’s Approach to AI

• Fractured Geopolitical Landscape
  • The Paris AI Summit of February 2025, which aimed to unify the world on AI governance, ended in discord, marked by the United States and the United Kingdom rejecting its final text, while China embraced it.
  • These divisions risk turning what should be a cooperative effort for humanity’s digital future into a fragmented contest of interests.
  • India, with its strategic position and credibility across multiple geopolitical blocs, is well placed to act as a bridge.
  • By developing inclusivity and dialogue, India can prevent AI governance from becoming a domain of competing spheres of influence, ensuring that AI benefits the global majority.
• A Democratic Approach to AI
  • India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology began preparing for the summit with a uniquely democratic approach.
  • In June 2025, it launched a nationwide consultation through the MyGov platform, inviting students, researchers, startups, and civil society groups to contribute ideas.
  • The agenda emerging from this process focuses on three key goals: advancing inclusive growth, accelerating development, and protecting the planet.
  • This consultative framework has provided India with a distinctive advantage, unlike past summit hosts, it is building an agenda rooted in broad-based participation and grassroots innovation. 

Actionable Proposals for the New Delhi AI Impact Summit

• Pledges and Report Cards
  • India’s success with digital infrastructure, such as Aadhaar’s secure identity system and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), illustrates how technology can serve everyone, not just the privileged.
  • The summit can borrow this spirit of accountability by encouraging each delegation to make a clear, measurable pledge for the year following the summit.
  • These could range from reducing data centre energy consumption to offering AI-based educational programs for rural communities.
  • Public scoreboards tracking these pledges would replace empty press releases with transparent progress reports.
• Elevating the Global South
  • At the first global AI summit, nearly half of humanity, primarily the Global South, was absent from leadership discussions.
  • India, as a voice for the Global South, must ensure equitable representation this time.
  • A proposed AI for Billions Fund, supported by development banks and Gulf investors, could provide cloud credits, fellowships, and local-language datasets for underserved communities.
  • Hosting a multilingual AI model challenge for 50 low-resource languages would send a powerful message: innovation is not confined to Silicon Valley or Beijing; it is universal.
• Establishing a Common Safety Check
  • Since the Bletchley AI Safety Summit of 2023, experts have advocated for red-teaming and stress-testing AI models.
  • While many countries have formed national AI safety institutes, no shared global checklist exists.
  • India could lead the creation of a Global AI Safety Collaborative to standardise red-team scripts, incident logs, and safety benchmarks for high-capacity models. An open evaluation toolkit could strengthen trust and transparency.
• Charting a Balanced Regulatory Path
  • The U.S. fears overregulation, Europe pushes for stringent laws through its AI Act, and China favours centralised state control.
  • Most nations, however, seek a middle ground. India could propose a voluntary yet enforceable code of conduct for frontier AI.
  • Building on the Seoul pledge, this code could require disclosure of compute resources above a certain threshold, the publication of external red-team results within 90 days, and the creation of an accident hotline.
  • Such steps would promote accountability without stifling innovation.
• Preventing Fragmentation
  • The AI ecosystem risks splintering along geopolitical lines, with the U.S. and China locked in a technological rivalry.
  • While New Delhi cannot dissolve these tensions, it can soften their impact by ensuring that the summit’s agenda remains broad, inclusive, and focused on collective global benefit.

India’s Role and Identity

• India is not aiming to build a global AI authority overnight, nor should it.
• Instead, it can integrate existing frameworks, develop collaboration, and position itself as a leader in sharing AI capacity with the world’s majority.
• By transforming participation into tangible progress, India will not merely host a summit, it will redefine its identity as a proactive force on one of the most critical frontiers of the 21st century.

Conclusion

• The AI Impact Summit of 2026 presents India with a unique diplomatic and technological opportunity.
• Through transparent pledges, inclusive representation, shared safety standards, balanced regulation, and resistance to fragmentation, India can guide AI governance toward equity and sustainability.
• In doing so, it will not only influence the trajectory of AI but also reaffirm its role as a bridge-builder in an increasingly divided world.