India’s AI summit draws global leaders, big pledges and some chaos
India’s AI summit draws global leaders, big pledges and some chaos
Publish Date: 2026-02-20 15:17:00
Source Domain: www.nbcnews.com
As the United States and China battle to dominate artificial intelligence, this week India attempted to highlight that there are other pathways to navigate the silicon surge.
Billed as the first high-level AI gathering to be held in the Global South, the India AI Impact Summit has given the world’s most populous country a stage to promote itself as a global AI player, broadening the AI conversation to include countries in Latin America, Africa and beyond.
“Long term, it’s good for the world that AI is not just viewed as a race between the U.S. and China, and I think that India is right now the player that most confidently says, ‘We reject this dynamic,’” said Jakob Mökander, director of science and technology policy at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
As the event’s “impact” branding suggests, the summit highlighted how countries can adopt and adapt increasingly powerful AI systems to their own needs and industries.
“Every country will want to chart their own AI destiny,” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the leader of the U.S. delegation at the summit, told NBC News. “They each have unique characteristics about their culture, their language, their traditions, the way that they want to use AI.”
As part of the event, Kratsios announced a series of initiatives to increase America’s global engagement on AI, including an AI-focused Peace Corps program and new World Bank funding for countries to buy AI systems.
The five-day summit in New Delhi, hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, opened with its share of hiccups. With over 250,000 registered attendees, the summit was plagued early this week with complaints of overcrowding, long lines, visa issues and traffic disruptions, and there were some major no-shows, including a last-minute cancellation from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
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