India To Host Next AI Action Summit: PM Modi

Taking over the mantle from France, India will host the next artificial intelligence (AI) Action Summit. 

In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs said that Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi announced the plans in his speech on Tuesday (February 11). The French presidency also reportedly confirmed the development. 

PM Modi co-chaired the week-long 2025 summit along with President of France, Emmanuel Macron. The event saw global leaders, policymakers, and industry experts descend upon Paris to deliberate the future course of action in the space of AI. 

At the mega event, the Indian PM delivered the opening address as the co-chair of the summit. Noting that the world was witnessing the dawn of the AI age, PM Modi said that the emerging technology was fast writing the code for humanity and re-shaping global polity, economy, security and society. 

While underlining the “amazing” positive potential of AI, PM Modi did not shy away from flagging issues plaguing existing foundational AI models. To prove his points, he cited an example. 

“If you upload your medical report to an AI app, it can explain in simple language, free of any jargon, what it means for your health. But, if you ask the same app to draw an image of someone writing with their Left hand, the app will most likely draw someone writing with their Right hand. Because that is what the training data is dominated by,” he said while flagging biases in AI models.

He went on to say that there was a need for collective global efforts to establish governance and standards for AI, which uphold shared values, address risks and build trust. While highlighting that AI was being developed and deployed at an unprecedented scale and speed, PM Modi added that AI governance standards should be intertwined with innovation and deploying such technologies for the global good. 

Not stopping there, PM Modi also called for equitable distribution of resources to spur AI innovation globally, especially in the Global South. 

“Governance is also about ensuring access to all, especially in the Global South. It is where the capacities are most lacking – be it compute power, talent, data, or the financial resources,” PM Modi added. 

Another facet that he touched upon was global collaboration on the AI front. PM Modi said that the world must pool together its resources and talent in the AI space to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Another key takeaway from the PM’s speech was his focus on “open” systems. He said that it was imperative to build open-source systems which enhance trust and transparency, which can help democratise technology and create people-centric applications. 

He also underscored the need for creating quality data sets that are free from biases, adding that AI technologies should be rooted in local ecosystems to be effective and useful. 

“We are developing AI applications for public good. We have one of the world’s largest AI talent pools. India is building its own Large Language Model considering our diversity. We also have a unique public-private partnership model for pooling resources like compute power. It is made available to our startups and researchers at an affordable cost. And, India is ready to share its experience and expertise to ensure that the AI future is for Good, and for All,” added PM Modi. 

He also said that it was the need of the hour to address concerns related to cyber security, disinformation, and deep fakes. 

On apprehensions of job losses due to AI, PM Modi shared, “Loss of jobs is AI’s most feared disruption. But, history has shown that work does not disappear due to technology. Its nature changes and new types of jobs are created. We need to invest in skilling and re-skilling our people for an AI-driven future”.

Not stopping there, the Prime Minister also said that it was imperative to ensure that “green power” fuels the “high energy intensity” of the AI sector. “Sustainable AI does not only mean using clean energy. AI models must also be efficient and sustainable in size, data needs and resource requirements,” added Modi. 

So What Did The Paris Summit Decide?

The summit also adopted the Paris Charter on AI in “public interest”. Endorsed by India, Germany, Kenya, Switzerland and six other nations, the countries agreed on the following principles:

• A resilient ecosystem is needed to support the development of open models, spanning both standard setting, tooling and best practices
• Accountability across every step of AI design, development, and deployment
• Participation and transparency are prerequisites for democratic governance in AI in the public interest.

The AI Action Summit in Paris was the third in the series of meetings focussed on AI. Previous such events were held in the UK in 2023 and South Korea in 2024. The first such summit was held in Bletchley Park and focussed on the safety of ‘frontier AI models’ and the emerging risks of AI.

The second meeting was held in Seoul and discussed multilateral collaboration on AI risk management through a network of AI safety institutes (AISIs). 

That said, India’s proactive pitch at the Paris event echoes the country’s similar stance on AI during its G20 presidency in 2023. Under India’s presidency, the G20 endorsed a “pro-innovation regulatory/governance approach” to balance AI innovation and the need to develop guardrails for AI. 

Thereafter, India also hosted the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) in 2023, which underscored the need for “equitable access to critical resources for AI research and innovation”.