Paris: India today commended the AI Action Summit’s decision to set up the “AI Foundation” and the “Council for Sustainable AI” and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recommended making the “Global Partnership for AI” more inclusive of the Global South and its priorities, concerns and needs.
Modi co-chaired the Summit along with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron in Paris. The week-long summit, which began with the Science Days on February 6-7, 2025, followed by the Cultural Weekend on February 8-9, culminated in a High-Level Segment attended by global leaders, policymakers, and industry experts.
The High-Level Segment commenced with a dinner hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace on February 10, 2025, bringing together Heads of State and Government, leaders of international organizations, CEOs of major AI (Artificial Intelligence) companies and other distinguished participants.
“Loss of jobs is AI’s most feared disruption. But, history has shown that work does not disappear due to technology. Its nature changes and new types of jobs are created. We need to invest in skilling and re-skilling our people for an AI-driven future,” Modi said in his speech.
Modi noted that Artificial Intelligence was very different from other technological milestones in human history in terms of impact, and called for collective global efforts to establish governance and standards that uphold shared values, address risks and build trust.
He further added that governance was not just about managing risks but also about promoting innovation and deploying it for the global good. In this regard, he advocated for ensuring access to Artificial Intelligence for all, especially the Global South. He called for democratizing technology and its people-centric applications so that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals becomes a reality. “There is no doubt that the high energy intensity of AI needs to be looked into. This will require green power to fuel its future,” he said.
Alluding to the success of the India-France sustainability partnership through initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance, the Indian Prime Minister stated that it was only natural that the two countries were joining hands to forge an innovation partnership for a smart and responsible future.
“India has successfully built a Digital Public Infrastructure for over 1.4 billion people at a very low cost. It is built around an open and accessible network. It has regulations, and a wide range of applications to modernize our economy, reform governance and transform the lives of our people. We have unlocked the power of data through our Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture. And, we have made digital commerce democratic and accessible to all. This vision is the foundation of India’s National AI Mission. That is why, during our G20 Presidency, we built a consensus on Harnessing AI Responsibly, for Good, and for All. Today, India leads in AI adoption and techno-legal solutions for data privacy,” he said.
Talking about India’s Artificial Intelligence Mission, Modi said that India, considering its diversity, was building its own Large Language Model for Artificial Intelligence. He underlined that India was ready to share its experience to ensure that the benefits of Artificial Intelligence reach everyone, and announced that India will be hosting the next Artificial Intelligence Summit.
“We are developing AI applications for the public good. We have one of the world’s largest AI talent pools. We also have a unique public-private partnership model for pooling resources like computing power. It is made available to our start-ups and researchers at an affordable cost,” he said.
The Summit concluded with the adoption of the Leaders’ Statement. The summit featured discussions on critical themes, including greater access to Artificial Intelligence infrastructure to ensure inclusion, the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence, and Artificial Intelligence for public interest, making Artificial Intelligence more diverse and sustainable, and ensuring safe and trusted governance of Artificial Intelligence.
Meanwhile, at the ‘2nd India-France AI Policy Roundtable’ on 10th February 2025 at the Sciences Po Paris University campus – an official side-event to the AI Action Summit 2025 – the interventions emphasized the need for democratized access to Artificial Intelligence resources, and capacity building while recognizing the importance of techno-legal frameworks. The participants highlighted the significance of sovereign Artificial Intelligence models, ethical Artificial Intelligence deployment and the need to define globally accepted terminologies and standards. Speakers also aligned on multilingual LLMs, federated Artificial Intelligence compute infrastructure, and interoperable access to Artificial Intelligence research, datasets, and high-performance computing resources. The meeting also covered key discussions on collaboration between India and France. The event was organised by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India in partnership with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, IndiaAI Mission and Sciences Po Paris.
The Second Roundtable was built upon key objectives from the First Roundtable organised in IISc, Bengaluru during Technology Dialogue 2025 on January 25, 2025. The First Roundtable discussion focussed on inclusive AI frameworks, diverse datasets, infrastructure and skills, and foundational models. It also addressed governance and innovation, public-private partnerships, sustainability and health, and academic and data collaboration. Both discussions highlighted ethical and responsible Artificial Intelligence, along with sector-specific and long-term goals.
– global bihari bureau
