Going Big on Applied AI

Global technology leaders are gathering in New Delhi this week for a summit focused less on revisiting the risks of AI and more on accelerating its adoption. As host of the first AI Summit in the “Global South”, India is signalling a pivot in global priorities that builds on France’s 2024 handover but moves beyond the frameworks of previous convenings. New Delhi, by changing the branding from Paris’ AI “Action” Summit, is emphasizing large-scale, sector-specific AI deployment over the safety-centric approach that shaped earlier meetings in the United Kingdom and South Korea.

A Busy Season for Indian Diplomacy

The summit takes place during an intense diplomatic season. After a challenging 2025, marked by a four-day conflict with Pakistan and strains in relations with the United States, New Delhi has been quick to reassert momentum. The announcement of the EU–India Free Trade Agreement, the EU–India Summit, and progress toward an interim US trade framework all indicate that last year’s setbacks have not derailed India’s global ambitions. Through the summit, New Delhi is positioning itself as an agenda setter and a representative of the “Global South” in global AI governance. The agenda is rooted in years of diplomatic groundwork. As the 2024 chair of Global Partnership on AI, India successfully pushed for restructuring the group to ensure equal standing for members and nonmembers of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. India also used G7 outreach sessions that year to “convert monopoly in technology into mass usage.”

A Techno-Legal Model to AI Governance

India’s course is one that differs from three dominant AI paradigms: the American light-touch innovation model, Europe's regulatory-led AI Act, and China's centralized oversight. New Delhi’s governance strategy relies on sector-specific guidelines and targeted amendments to existing legislation rather than standalone AI law. It is a “techno-legal approach" that combines legal instruments, regulatory oversight, and technical enforcement mechanisms built into AI systems.

Drawing on its experience delivering digital public infrastructure (DPI) nationwide, examples of which include Aadhaar’s biometric identity system and the Unified Payments Interface, India is positioning itself as a hub for large‑scale AI deployment and diffusion across the “Global South”.

What to Watch

The scale of the AI summit offers a striking case of India’s mobilizing technology diplomacy, but a key measure of success will lie in the wording of the leaders’ concluding declaration. Important questions will be whether and how that statement diverges from the one adopted in Paris last year; which countries ultimately sign on to it (the United Kingdom and the United

States did not endorse the 2025 Paris declaration); and whether India succeeds in strengthening the focus on applied AI into global governance vocabulary, much as it once mainstreamed the concept of DPI during its 2023 G20 presidency.

If the summit highlights India’s ambitions around AI governance and diffusion, the meeting’s broader AI strategy must reconcile the host nation’s strategic autonomy with building the physical infrastructure that underpins the AI stack. Consistent with its long‑standing foreign policy, New Delhi seeks control over the critical inputs required for AI development. Yet achieving this will require navigating and maintaining digital sovereignty while attracting the foreign investment to scale the infrastructure needed to fuel the AI ambitions.

Major firms already appear to be adapting accordingly. They are publicly aligning investments with India’s digital sovereignty goals and introducing solutions, such as Microsoft’s sovereign public and private cloud for Indian customers. Other companies are anchoring the goals in local partnerships, as Google, in its first Indian AI hub, is doing with AdaniConnex and Airtel. Whether either approach delivers genuine technological sovereignty remains to be seen. But it points to a distinctly Indian model of managed interdependence, one that could offer lessons to European partners also trying to balance innovation, competitiveness, and sovereignty in their own AI ecosystems.

Heralding a New Approach?

India’s hosting of the AI Impact Summit marks a shift in global tech diplomacy from setting norms to shaping outcomes. New Delhi is advancing a distinct governance model with a deployment at scale that relies on foreign inputs. If successful, the gathering could redefine how emerging and advanced economies navigate the tradeoffs among sovereignty, scale, and strategic openness in the AI era.

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.