Opinion | India AI Summit: Global South’s AI Voice Finds Its Microphone In Delhi

Sanbeer Singh Ranhotra

By chairing this summit, India staked credibility on a different premise: the countries with the most to gain or lose from AI are the ones most qualified to shape where it goes.

Britain picked Bletchley Park for the first global AI safety summit in November 2023. The choice was deliberate. This was where Alan Turing cracked Nazi codes during World War II, a venue dripping with Western technological symbolism. Seoul hosted the next round in May 2024. Paris followed in February 2025. The pattern was clear: rules for artificial intelligence were getting written in capitals that had money, infrastructure, and political clout. Everyone else got to watch from the sidelines.

That script flipped this week. On 16 February, the AI Impact Summit opened at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, marking the first time one of these gatherings landed anywhere in the developing world. Over five days, more than 20 heads of state, 60 ministers, and a parade of Silicon Valley executives, from Sundar Pichai of Alphabet to Dario Amodei from Anthropic, showed up to argue about who should govern AI, who benefits from it, and who decides. The location was the whole point.

Opinion | Chinar Open Winter Games: Blending Sport Push With Anti-Drug Drive

Opinion | Congress At War With Itself: The Growing Revolt Against Rahul Gandhi

Opinion | Great Nicobar And India's Indo-Pacific Maritime Geometry

Opinion | Bofors To Rafale: Has PM Modi Successfully Ended The Scam Veto On Defence Procurement?

India did not stumble into this........

© News18