The tech bros might show more humility in Delhi – but will they make AI any safer?

Source: BBC Technology

AI Impact Summit Overview

2 hours ago Zoe Kleinman, Technology editor

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Those who shout the loudest about artificial intelligence tend to be in the West, notably the US and Europe.

So it’s significant that a gathering of powerful leaders is being held in the Global South—a region that risks being left behind in the AI race.

Tech bosses, politicians, scientists, academics and campaigners are meeting at the AI Impact Summit in India this week for top‑level discussions about how the world should steer the AI revolution in the right direction.

The various Western powers jostled for pole position in Paris, and US Vice President JD Vance delivered a blistering speech in which he said America’s place at the top of the pack was non‑negotiable.

I suspect there may be a more humble vibe this week in Delhi: the capital of a country that has helped build the foundations that support this mega‑powerful new tech—but is not reaping as much reward as the more affluent West.

There are several significant AI hubs in India, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai. The country has a large tech workforce and has attracted major infrastructure investments from the likes of Google, Nvidia and Amazon.

In her book Empire of AI, journalist Karen Hao writes about an unnamed firm in India that was contracted to moderate AI‑generated images; she notes that workers were forced to review horrifying content to decide what should be blocked.

According to the recruitment site Glassdoor, the average salary for an AI data trainer in Chennai is 480,000 rupees—less than £4,000 ($5,000) per year. It’s an essential role, but to put this into perspective, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is valued at over $500 billion.

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More Than Technology for India

The 2026 International AI Safety Report notes that while “in some countries over 50 % of the population uses AI,” adoption across much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America likely remains below 10 %.

Language Barriers

• The world’s biggest U.S. AI chatbots do not work in all of India’s 22 official languages, let alone the hundreds of dialects spoken across the country.
• Current coverage:
  • ChatGPT & Claude – ~½ of the official languages
  • Google Gemini – 9 languages

“Without tech that understands and speaks these languages, millions are excluded from the digital revolution – especially in education, governance, healthcare, and banking,”
— Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya, IIT‑Mumbai (BBC, summer 2023)
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India’s Sovereign AI Push

• AI Mission – the Indian government’s sovereign‑AI platform initiative.
• Budget: US $1.2 bn, modest compared with the multi‑billion‑dollar resources of private corporations.
• Progress is slower than that of U.S. and Chinese firms (e.g., DeepSeek, ByteDance).

“For India, this is about more than technology; it is about economic transformation, digital sovereignty and building capability at scale.”
— Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Peak XV

“Within the country there is a strong sense of momentum and confidence.” – Rajan Anandan

The 2024 AI Summit in Delhi

• Key theme: a bottom‑up, Global South approach to AI governance that foregrounds people, planet, and progress.
• U.S. role: Potentially reduced influence as the summit emphasizes inclusive, democratic AI policy.

“The Americans will have less to say with the Summit’s proposed bottom‑up approach.” – Prof. Gina Neff, Queen Mary University of London

“We need governments to act together to shape a more inclusive, democratic and people‑centred vision of AI in the face of unprecedented corporate power.” – Jeni Tennison, Connected by Data

“As the world’s largest ‘middle power’, India could make that happen.” – Jeni Tennison

“I hope we will see pragmatic efforts to move beyond a legislative patchwork towards meaningful consensus in addressing AI harms.” – Henry Ajder

“For this summit to have any real impact for the Global South, there needs to be access for all to AI and that can only be achieved by opening it up.” – Amanda Brock, OpenUK

Concerns Raised

• Many AI giants still keep training data and core model details confidential.
• Safety and responsibility appear to have slipped down the agenda: after the 2023 UK AI Safety Summit, the word “safety” was removed from the event title.
• Some experts have declined to attend the Delhi summit, doubting meaningful outcomes.

“It’s important that we go but my expectations of anything useful coming out of it are very low.” – Prof. Dame Wendy Hall, University of Southampton

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