World Leaders Convene in New Delhi for Global AI Future Summit

Heads of state and technology ministers from over 80 countries have gathered in New Delhi for the Global AI Future Summit. The agenda is substantial: international AI governance, a unified safety framework, and more equitable access to AI technology for developing nations.

The summit is the largest diplomatic gathering around artificial intelligence to date. Discussions center on establishing an international framework that could function as a kind of UN for AI, with agreements on what state and commercial actors can and cannot do with the most powerful models.

Developing countries have pushed hard to get AI governance on the international agenda. Many fear that if standards are set in Washington and Brussels, they will reflect Western priorities and leave the rest of the world as recipients of technology they had no hand in shaping.

Concrete proposals on the table include a joint audit mechanism for frontier models, safety data sharing between governments, and a fund to help low-income countries build local AI capacity.

The outcome of the summit remains uncertain. Technology negotiations at this level take time, and there is significant disagreement between the US, EU, and China over what governance should actually entail. But the fact that this meeting is taking place in New Delhi, rather than Washington or Geneva, is itself a signal that the balance of power in AI discourse is shifting.