Name: Indian Prime Minister Modi: India to become AI-hub | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-02-20T01:47:34.000Z
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India is hosting what it calls one of the largest artificial intelligence gatherings in the developing world.

The AI Impact Summit brings together global tech leaders such as Google's CEO Sundar Pichai and OpenAI's Sam Altman.

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But Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who was due to give the keynote speech, cancelled at the last minute amid fresh scrutiny over his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Organizers say the summit aims to shape how emerging economies use AI.

But with fierce competition from the United States and China, can India really Lead the way?

From AI powered robots to locally built chatbots, the summit floor reflects India's growing ambition to shape its own AI future.

Among the highlights of this summit summit is a new generation of Sauron AI models like Bar GPT.

It's designed for local languages and voice first access, aiming to make technology more accessible across India, including rural areas.

We don't have to be dependent to other LLMs for getting the or creating the virtual assistants, so we thought of let's create our own.

We have the required manpower to build it and we built it.

So this summit offers us a wide range of customers, wide range of audience to whom we can showcase what we have built.

The scale of the event is significant, with more than 40 top tech executives, around 20 world leaders and thousands of AI researchers attending.

For India, it's both a technology showcase and a diplomatic moment.

Officials here say their goal is to democratize artificial intelligence, making it accessible, affordable and relevant for developing nations.

India is a natural leader of the global South.

We are the largest country in terms of population, the range of things that we are working on here which will make AI truly meaningful for people.

The idea is to privatize and make sure that public impact is is created on a huge scale through the use of AI.

For India, this summit is about gaining ground in the AI race and putting the country in the global spotlight.

India is presenting something new, an approach that it calls a third wave in artificial intelligence.

This framework differs from Chinese state drone model and the corporate led approach in the United States.

Here the focus is on using technology for public good.

Officials say AI should improve everyday lives.

Experts say that India's approach and its scale gives it an edge.

With a vast digital population and rapidly growing data ecosystems, India sees itself as a testing ground for real world AI applications from language tools to public services.

Government says AI can transform sectors like farming, education and healthcare.

But alongside the optimism, there are intense debates about the future of work and concern over the impact of automation on traditional job markets.

So the biggest impact is always going to be at the routine type of activities which can now be automated and therefore their jobs will become a lot better and they will get elevated to the next higher level.

The path to leading the global south in AI may not be straightforward.

India still faces challenges from semiconductor dependence to gaps in data center infrastructure.

While the promises are ambitious, it remains to be seen whether the vision outlined at the summit can translate into real world impact.

India is presenting itself right at the center of the global AI conversation.

At the summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pitching the country as a future hub for artificial intelligence.

He says India's huge pool of engineers and fast growing digital infrastructure will give it an edge in leading AI across the Global south as the country tries to position itself as a key voice for the developing world.

That message was reinforced after UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said AI must benefit everyone, not just billionaires.

Indian officials are pushing what they describe as a public interest, building affordable tools and infrastructure so small our businesses and government can use AI to not large corporations.

But there are also growing questions about how ready countries really are.

The CEO of Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI, warned that outsmart humans in many fields.

In here in India, regulation is still evolving as policymakers try to balance innovation with safeguards.

We're joined now by Mishi Chowdhury, a technology lawyer and online civil liberties activist.

The who is who of the AI industry really got together at the summit in India.

How important is it, in your opinion, that emerging global players like India move into the spotlight and take a seat at the table?

Well, it's not about taking a seat at the table.

With the talent India has as well as the natural leadership position it possesses.

What it chooses to do, that's what's going to determine about the future.

There is of course, a lot of interest, even from countries in Africa, in Southeast Asia, Latin America, to see how India takes the approach.

Which is in contrast to the hyperscalers from the United States who are at least right now, by raising trillions of dollars, trying to pursue the illusory goal of artificial general intelligence and trying to eliminate labor, which a country like India cannot afford, considering the population and the number of people we have, or the Chinese model, which is definitely relying on open source, but

building more products, but also comes with its own challenges in terms of the party.

I think a lot of right words are used, whether they're actually going to be translated into practice or not.

That is something we've had a shaky is shaky at least track record to show for.

Did you get the sense that the dangers of AI were being given sufficient true consideration or was it just, as you put it, nice words?

I think the Silicon Valley snake oil charmers have a great talent in ensuring that the narrative is presented in such a way that all of us just think about inevitability of this AI which has come in.

We didn't talk a lot about what it is going to do in terms of elimination of labor.

There was hardly any discussion in terms of the impact on climate change.

India's this is New Delhi, where most of the people who are generally concerned about their health came to a place where the AQI is always at a dangerous level these days.

The power infrastructure is a challenge in our country.

There is definitely the mention in the Prime Minister's speech about synthetic lead generated stuff.

They talk about labeling and deep fakes, which is at least a real problem.

But there's several other issues which were just in the hype of that we are going to build new models or old models or frontier or smaller inference models.

Those issues were not really addressed as much as we do talk about public good and talk about regulation.

It seems that the large companies want to do some kind of a regulation, but

they want to decide what that regulation is.

Humans at the center of it are there, but

we didn't see much of them at the table, whether it was the larger stage where most of the people who work on actual issues of people were not invited, or the various other things which were being discussed.

That was Mishi Chowdhury, a technology lawyer and online civil liberties activist.

Thank you so much for your expertise and being on the show today.