India is hosting an artificial intelligence summit this week in New Delhi, bringing together heads of state, senior officials and technology executives for a five-day meeting that organizers describe as reflecting AI’s rising global importance. Organizers said the India AI Impact Summit is being held in the Global South and is aimed at addressing how AI should be developed and governed as governments and companies expand its use across sectors.
The organizers said the summit will highlight the technology’s growing role in economies and labor markets while also raising questions around regulation, security and ethics. They described the event as evolving from earlier editions focused largely on the safety of cutting-edge AI systems into a broader gathering that combines safety discussions with other policy and industry concerns.
India is presenting the summit as an opportunity to position itself as a bridge between advanced economies and the Global South. Officials said the country’s experience building large-scale digital public infrastructure—including digital identity and payment platforms—offers a model for deploying AI at scale while keeping costs low.
Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, said, “The goal is clear: AI should be used for shaping humanity, inclusive growth and a sustainable future.” The summit is set to begin Monday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi scheduled to address a session on Thursday, according to organizers.
Organizers said 20 heads of state and government are expected to attend, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Major technology figures listed by organizers include Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman, Microsoft President Brad Smith and AMI Labs Executive Chairman Yann LeCun.
India’s own officials and business leaders said they want the summit to reflect recognition of the country as an “enabler” of national capabilities and resilience. Sumant Sinha, CEO of the NASDAQ-listed ReNew, said, “As India continues on the journey to become a developed nation by 2047, AI has a critical role to play in strengthening large scale systems, from energy and manufacturing to public infrastructure.”
Organizers said, like previous editions, the summit is not expected to result in a joint binding political agreement. They said it is more likely to end with a non-binding pledge or declaration on goals for AI development, rather than a legally enforceable framework.
The summit’s organizers and participants also pointed to broader safety-and-governance efforts underway internationally. In the lead-up to the India meeting, a panel of experts released a second annual safety report on risks posed by advanced AI systems, including misuse, malfunctions and “so-called systemic risks.” Yoshua Bengio, described as one of the “Godfathers of AI” who led the study, said, “The whole point of this report is to build an international consensus on the state of the science regarding the emerging risks of AI,” adding, “It’s really important that the world will continue to have a strong independent scientific evaluation of the risks.”
Another theme at the meeting is the impact of AI on jobs and the need to prepare workers for new roles. Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice president at Nasscom, said there is “a lot of genuine concern” about job impacts, and also argued that the response in India emphasizes “re-skilling programs and as AI becomes much more mainstream, you will also see newer job roles coming up.”
For individuals and students, AI’s practical effects can already be visible in day-to-day tasks, organizers said. Anirudh Singh, a 22-year-old pursuing a master’s in social work from Delhi University, said, “I think AI is just reducing the tedious work that students generally had to do.”