Against the backdrop of the competition for AI dominance between China and the USA, the AI Action Summit is being hosted in the Ville Lumière or the City of Light, Paris. This will be the third edition of the global dialogue around AI governance. The previous two being held in the UK in 2023 and Seoul, South Korea in 2024.

The primary three objectives of the summit are as follows:

• Make independent, safe and reliable AI accessible to all.
• Develop more environment-friendly AI.
• Ensure global governance of AI which is both effective and inclusive.

The first summit at Bletchley Park focused on the safety of ‘frontier AI models, the emerging risks of AI and the doomsday concerns posed by AI. The summit resulted in the signing of the Bletchley Declaration on AI Safety by 25 states including the USA and China. The AI Safety Institute (AISI) was established in the UK. The second meeting at Seoul focused on collaboration for AI risk management by enabling a network of AI Safety Institutes (AISI) with countries such as Japan, Singapore, France and the USA.

The summit will feature Prime Minister Modi as Co-chair alongside French President Immanuel Macron. It is a monumental occasion to display the soft power of India and France at a global level. It will be attended by 100 other world leaders and 1,500 guests. As a co-chair of the AI Action Summit India will have the opportunity to push its AI vision for the global south.

India should prioritize the democratization of AI across the entire value chain. Moreover, it should attempt to contextualize AI uses, focusing on the Global South as a demographic. Lastly, it should push for AI safety measures in the Global South.

At the AI action summit, AI4India and the Centre for Policy and Governance Research will co-host a panel discussion on “Data for Development: Building AI in Global South.” The discussion will centre around three critical themes AI sovereignty in the global south, data control and equitable AI development in emerging economies and the impact of AI on international trade, economic resilience, and the workforce of tomorrow.

The AI Action Summit kicked off on February 6th, when Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris) hosted a conference on “AI, Science, and Society.” The conference featured renowned researchers such as Michael Jordan (University of California, Berkeley), Erik Brynjolfsson (Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI), and Joèlle Barral (Google DeepMind).

The interdisciplinary platform provided a scope at how AI can be informed by and contribute to understanding collective intelligence in science, economics and beyond. It tried to highlight the synergies between these perspectives- not only deepening our understanding of the current state of AI development but also the future development that aligns with societal values and priorities.