Arya News - Speakers emphasised AI’s transformative potential while cautioning against the dangers of concentrated power and widening inequality.
NEW DELHI – The India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi has established itself as a pivotal global forum, convening world leaders, industry titans, and technology pioneers to promote a human-centric and ethically responsible future for artificial intelligence.
Throughout the summit, speakers emphasized AI’s transformative potential while cautioning against the dangers of concentrated power and widening inequality.
French President Emmanuel Macron commended India as a “civilisational” force driving the global AI revolution. Opening with a striking example, he said, “A street vendor in Mumbai who, a decade ago, had no bank account, no address on record, and no access to formal finance, but today accepts digital payments on his phone. India has built something no other country has—a digital identity for 1.4 billion people.”
Macron spotlighted India’s extraordinary feat of digitally integrating its vast population through the India Stack Open Interoperable Sovereign system, noting India’s processing of “20 billion transactions every month” and issuance of “500 million digital health IDs.” He urged that AI development must marry “innovation with responsibility, technology with humanity.”
“The future of AI will be built by those who combine innovation and responsibility,” Macron declared, pledging that India and France will jointly shape this future. He warned of the “alarming concentration of power” in the hands of a few tech giants, praising India’s strategy to democratize AI via “small language models” and affordable GPUs.
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani echoed this vision, announcing a landmark investment of 10 lakh crore rupees in AI by Reliance and its subsidiary Jio. “India will emerge as one of the greatest AI powers in the world in the 21st century,” Ambani asserted, citing India’s unmatched demographic, democratic, infrastructural, and data advantages.
Ambani outlined Jio Intelligence’s sovereign compute infrastructure plan built on three pillars: a multi-gigawatt AI-ready data center in Jamnagar with 120 megawatts capacity by late 2026; a green energy surplus up to 10 gigawatts in Kutch and Andhra Pradesh powering sustainable AI operations; and a nationwide edge compute network ensuring low-latency, affordable AI access.
Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced a $15 billion investment to create a full-stack AI hub in Visakhapatnam (Vizag), transforming the coastal city into a global AI center. “This hub will house gigawatt-scale compute and a new international subsea cable gateway, bringing jobs and cutting-edge AI to people and businesses across India,” said Pichai to widespread applause.
Pichai lauded India’s rapid technological rise and global AI leadership, highlighting AI’s impact on scientific breakthroughs such as Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold system, which solved protein-structure prediction and accelerated malaria vaccine research. “No technology has me dreaming bigger than AI,” he said, calling for bold action to ensure AI’s equitable benefits worldwide.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered a cautionary yet hopeful address, warning that AI’s future “cannot be decided by a handful of countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires.” He proposed a $3 billion global fund to build AI capacity in all nations, cautioning that without such investment many risk being “logged out of the AI age.”
Guterres emphasized the need for AI development grounded in ethical standards, human rights, and strong global oversight. “No child should be a test subject for unregulated AI,” he warned, highlighting the UN’s newly established AI scientific advisory body. He called for multilateral cooperation to harness AI for breakthroughs in medicine, education, food security, climate action, and public services—without deepening inequality or harming the environment.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who inaugurated the summit, joined the global leaders and tech CEOs including Pichai and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for a group photograph, symbolizing the collaborative spirit of this first major AI summit hosted in the Global South. The event’s core themes — People, Planet, and Progress — reflect a shared global commitment to inclusive, sustainable AI-driven development.
As the India AI Impact Summit progresses, the resounding message from world leaders, industry figures, and technology experts is clear: the future of artificial intelligence belongs to those who blend technological innovation with ethical responsibility, uphold human values, and collaborate internationally to build AI that benefits all of humanity.