When the UK hosted the first-ever global AI Safety Summit 2023 at Bletchley Park—often hailed as the birthplace of modern computing—the focus was squarely on frontier risks, not real-world harms. That led to at least some action, with countries forming AI safety institutes and making other commitments regarding AI safety.
Two more global AI summits followed: Seoul in 2024 and Paris in 2025. With each edition, the agenda broadened to include inclusive and sustainable AI, ethics, environmental impact, and governance frameworks. A key flashpoint emerged in Paris when neither the US nor the UK signed the leaders’ statement—a joint declaration on “inclusive and sustainable AI for people and the planet”—signalling a clear divergence in how any discussion around governance and regulation should be approached.
As a result, despite the widening scope, little has been achieved in terms of enforceable or meaningful AI governance.
What has grown exponentially, however, is investment. The top five hyperscalers—including Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta—are estimated to have spent around $443 billion on capital expenditure in 2025. CreditSights projects this figure will rise to $602 billion this year, a 36% year-on-year increase, with roughly 75% of that spending directed towards AI infrastructure.
In contrast, the summits have delivered failed promises of self-regulation by Big Tech, voluntary agreements lacking teeth, and regulatory frameworks from the Global North that critics argue are hollow or incomplete.
This raises a key question: will the India AI Impact Summit 2026 be any different—or will it become yet another display of diplomatic theatrics and competitive posturing, rather than a forum that brings AI developers and civil society to the same table?
The AI FOMO
No company—or country—wants to miss the AI moment. But do they know what they actually want from AI, or are they just responding to pressure from Big Tech? According to a Capgemini research brief, The multi-year AI advantage: Building the enterprise of tomorrow, organisations expect to allocate 5% of their annual budgets to AI by 2026, up from 3% in 2025. The fear of losing strategic advantage is driving rapid scaling, often without clarity on long-term consequences.
2025 saw AI taking centre stage globally like never before. Mass enterprise adoption, powerful generative models, and government engagement brought the technology into everyday business, governance, and public life.
“Several involved in large AI businesses are seeking to pressure government officials and policymakers to pivot away from any discussion around AI governance, depending on a false narrative of regulation being at odds with innovation. The past six months have seen a strong push for speedy AI deployment. Do we really need to adopt at this speed?” Raman Jit Singh Chima, Asia-Pacific policy director at Access Now, tells AIM.
India mirrors this trend. An EY-CII report found that 91% of leaders cited speed of deployment as the primary driver behind buy-versus-build decisions, highlighting impatience to convert innovation into impact. In 2025 alone, Big Tech pledged an estimated $40-50 billion towards India’s AI and cloud infrastructure. While these investments promise growth and jobs, critics argue they are not aligned with India’s most pressing needs.
At the CII Annual Business Summit 2025, chief economic adviser to the Indian government, V Anantha Nageswaran, cautioned against excessive AI deployment at the cost of labour, noting that India needs to generate nearly eight million jobs annually.
The previous three summits failed to slow this breakneck, and uneven deployment of AI driven by the Global North. They ask, “Why is AI risky?” but failed to answer the harder questions: who holds power, who bears the costs, and who sets the rules?
There has been no agreement on a global baseline for AI governance, only voluntary ceilings. Industry influence remains deeply intertwined with rule-making. There is still no consensus on public-interest infrastructure such as open models, public compute, or shared datasets. Industrial policy, climate goals, and AI governance remain misaligned. The Global South, meanwhile, continues to be present, but rarely decisive.
In India, the pressure to remain “globally competitive” has softened calls for strict regulation. While the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) released a working paper on AI training frameworks in December 2025, it remains at a draft stage. India is also hosting energy- and water-intensive data centres, even in environmentally stressed regions, while much of the economic value flows abroad.
“Governments are racing to develop national AI strategies, but rarely take environmental sustainability into account. The absence of environmental guardrails is no less dangerous than the lack of other AI safeguards,” Golestan Sally Radwan, the chief digital officer of UN Environment Programme, warns.
Can the India AI Summit Be Any Different?
Civil society groups believe India has an opportunity to emerge as a genuine leader of the Global South. Positioned as the first major global AI summit in the Global South, the India AI Summit is being framed around the principles of ‘People, Planet and Progress’.
Critics argue, however, that it will only matter if India moves past declarations and begins to act as a rule-shaper rather than merely a convenor.
“It is time to move beyond theatrics of participation, bring more transparency to the process and ensure representation while setting the agenda. Rather than giving in to tech-optimism we must ask ourselves the need and purpose of the proposed AI intervention and ensure a mitigation strategy is in place,” says Isha Suri, European AI & Society Fund fellow and former research lead at the Centre for Internet and Society.
There are also concerns over heavy Big Tech participation at the Delhi summit. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang, Microsoft president Brad Smith and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are expected to attend, which could dilute regulatory ambition into familiar “responsible AI” narratives.
“India’s AI push is increasingly shaped by Big Tech rather than domestic priorities,” Suri adds. “Most projects depend on foreign cloud providers, chips and foundation models, creating long-term lock-in. AI is being promoted as a shortcut to fixing healthcare, education and welfare gaps—despite chronically low public spending,” she says in a conversation with AIM.
More than 190 countries have adopted UNESCO’s non-binding recommendations on ethical AI, including environmental safeguards. Yet, without mandatory enforcement, critics say, these frameworks remain aspirational.
“India should seek to use the summit to demonstrate its commitment to supporting global majority leadership towards AI governance. The development of AI should not be an end in itself,” says Chima.
Whether the summit can break this pattern—and deliver governance rather than rhetoric—remains the real test.
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