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India will host the AI Impact Summit in 2026 to revolutionize global discussions on AI by ensuring its benefits extend to all.

INDIA TO HOST THE AI IMPACT SUMMIT 2026 

What are India's Proposals for Global AI Governance?

Accountability through Pledges and Report Cards => India's digital public goods like Aadhaar, which provides secure identity to over a billion people, and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which enables instant money transfers, prove that technology can genuinely serve everyone.

• India proposes that each delegation at the 2026 Summit commit to one clear, measurable goal achievable within 12 months. 
• These pledges would be tracked publicly on a scoreboard, to ensure accountability.

Bringing the Global South to the Front Row  => India, as a leading voice for the Global South advocating for the widest possible participation.

• The "AI for Billions Fund," seeded by development banks and Gulf investors, to provide developing countries support like cloud credits, fellowships, and datasets in local languages.
• India could launch a "multilingual model challenge" for 50 underserved languages.

Global AI Safety Collaborative => Since the Bletchley Summit in 2023, experts have emphasized "red teaming" (stress-testing AI) and robust safety checks. While many national AI safety institutes have emerged, a shared global checklist is missing.

• India could negotiate a "Global AI Safety Collaborative", to share "red team scripts", incident logs (records of AI failures).
• India's own institutes could contribute an open evaluation kit with code and datasets to check for bias and robustness.

A Voluntary Code of Conduct => World is currently divided on AI regulation: the U.S. has heavy oversight, Europe has its strict AI Act, and China prefers state control. 

• India can provide the balance by drafting a voluntary "frontier AI code of conduct", built on agreements like the Seoul pledge, which mandates the publication of external red team results within 90 days, establishing an "accident hotline”.

Inclusive Agenda => 2026 summit's agenda must be broad, inclusive, and firmly focused on global good, promoting unity over division.

How is India Building its Own Robust AI Ecosystem?

NITI Aayog's National Strategy for AI (NSAI) => Released in 2018,  identified five key sectors for AI intervention: healthcare, agriculture, education, smart cities & infrastructure, and smart mobility & transportation.

NITI Aayog released "Principles for Responsible AI" in 2021 => Outlines broad ethical principles for designing, developing, and deploying AI systems, drawing on global best practices but adapted to the Indian context.

IndiaAI Mission (2024) => Launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), it plans a seven-pillar policy focusing on:

• India AI Compute Capacity
• India AI Innovation Centre
• India AI Datasets Platform
• India AI Application Development Initiative
• India AI Future Skills
• India AI Startup Financing
• Safe & Trusted AI 

How Do Other Countries Manage AI Regulation? 

Conclusion

India wants to reframe the entire global AI debate. It believes AI's future is about humans using AI to achieve amazing things, not about robots replacing humans. By focusing on inclusivity, and ethical development, India seeks to guide AI towards a future that benefits all of humanity.

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Source: THE HINDU