India’s AI summit draws global leaders, big pledges and some chaos

As the U.S. and China battle to dominate artificial intelligence, India has attempted to highlight that there are other pathways to navigate the silicon surge.

As the United States and China battle to dominate artificial intelligence, this week India attempted to highlight 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.”