Other nations that have thrown their hats into the ring include India, France and a host of other European countries. The worldwide interest and nagging concerns regarding AI were reflected at the recent AI Action Summit co-chaired by France and India in Paris on February 10-11
While technology has been an economic game changer throughout history, it has perhaps never been as pressing or critical as it is today. The rise and fall of corporations, societies and even nations today are exigent on technological advancement. And at the vanguard of this ineluctable dynamic is AI, or artificial intelligence.
Today, the leaderships of nations across the globe are aware, however dimly, of the criticality of AI. Not all, however, are in a position to do very much about it, except to look on while the leading players in this field race ahead. The clear front-runner in the race is the United States, with a handful of giant corporations illuminating the road ahead. Racing to keep up is the world’s second largest economy, China, which is pouring in billions to ramp up its AI capabilities and has recently come up with its astonishing AI genie, DeepSeek.
Other nations that have thrown their hats into the ring include India, France and a host of other European countries. The worldwide interest and nagging concerns regarding AI were reflected at the recent AI Action Summit co-chaired by France and India in Paris on February 10-11. Doing the honours were Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The aim of this gathering was to find out if it was possible to pool together diverse national resources to stay in the AI game. This comes from the recognition, stated in the AI Action Summit declaration, that the “rapid development of AI technologies represents a major paradigm shift, impacting our citizens and societies in many ways”.
The issue was how to diversify the AI ecosystem and narrow inequalities in the field. The summit statement called for “an open, multi-stakeholder and inclusive approach that will enable AI to be human rights based, human-centric, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, while also stressing the need and urgency to narrow the inequalities and assist developing countries in artificial intelligence capacity-building so they can build AI capacities”.
Significantly, the United States, which is far in the lead in the race, declined to be a signatory to the summit’s goal even though it participated in it. US vice-president J.D. Vance, who represented his country, evidently saw no percentage in a joint approach when his country was in fact winning. “The United States of America is the leader in AI and our administration plans to keep it that way,” he declared, adding that other foreign countries could partner with American AI leaders if they wished to expand their own use of AI.
The 58 countries which signed the summit declaration are all laggards, which includes China, India and France. They all want to establish rules of the game and try to prevent the United States from running away with all the prizes. But this is going to be resisted.
Vice-president J.D. Vance made it amply clear that he would not tolerate any attempt to regulate the development of AI in a manner that would constrain its rise in the United States: “At this moment, we face the extraordinary prospect of a new industrial revolution ... But it will never come to pass if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.” He added that “we feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias, and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship”.
The gloves are off. This is going to be a fight. While the AI summit signatories realise that they can fall behind in the AI race only at their peril, it is obvious that few countries will be able to enter, let alone endure, in this exhausting marathon.
Among the few countries in a position to compete are China, India, France and perhaps a few others. Not surprisingly, President Macron has made it a national priority to team up with India in the competition. He along with Prime Minister Modi have “launched an India-France Roadmap on Artificial Intelligence (AI), rooted in the philosophical convergence in their approaches focusing on the development of safe, open, secure and trustworthy artificial intelligence”.
Both nations are planning big investments in AI. Mr Macron revealed that the French private sector was investing a whopping $113 billion in AI whereas India has so far committed a modest $1.2 billion. India will have to cough up much more money if it is to remain a serious player. But even then, it can’t be expected to compete with either China, which has poured in unknown billions into AI, or with the United States, which has recently committed $500 billion to the cause.
While India may lack cash, it has oodles of valuable human resources and a vast and highly functional digital ecosystem. Political will too is not lacking. Prime Minister Modi, as he said at the summit, recognises that the world is at the dawn of the AI age and that “this technology was fast writing the code for humanity and re-shaping our polity, economy, security and society”.
The Prime Minister’s call for “collective global efforts” appears to be a reflection of the realisation that India cannot do it alone. Currently, India might be the largest consumer of AI but to become a producer like ChatGPT, DeepSeek or Alphabet’s Gemini requires humungous investment in research as well as the construction of mammoth data centres where computing power is measured in terms of raw electricity consumed.
Such gigawatt consuming computing behemoths are only just beginning to come up in India. The India AI Mission launched in March last year with a Rs 10,000 crore budget seeks to accelerate the process. The Prime Minister’s France visit tied up collaboration with France to build small-scale nuclear reactors for powering data centres.
Sam Altman, the man behind ChatGPT, had initially expressed scepticism about India’s AI ambitions, but of late has admitted that the rapidly declining cost of AI hardware could allow smaller players to enter the race.
For India, the two positives are political resolve and intellectual talent. The Indian top leadership’s interest and intent on developing AI can only be good for the country in the long run. If nothing else, a strong dose of AI could help reform the country’s elephantine government-bureaucratic machinery and propel the country towards a new era of innovation.
