AI Governance and a Voice for the Global South

UPSC Syllabus: Gs Paper 3- Science and Technology  And Gs Paper 2- Governance

India hosted the India AI Impact Summit 2026 to bring the Global South’s needs into the centre of AI governance. The summit initially focused on real-world harms, equity and inclusion, but India’s AI approach later shifted towards investment, domestic AI adoption and strategic partnerships. This created a debate on whether India should continue leading the Global South or move towards a middle power strategy while protecting its own strategic interests.

India’s AI Governance Vision at the India AI Impact Summit 2026

1. Global South at the Centre: The summit placed the needs and challenges of the Global South at the centre of AI discussions instead of treating them as secondary concerns.
2. Focus on Present-Day Harms: India’s approach gave priority to real-world harms, equity and inclusion, unlike earlier AI summits that mainly focused on catastrophic and existential AI risks.
3. Different Policy Direction: This marked a clear shift from the approaches followed at Bletchley Park (2023), Seoul (2024) and Paris (2025) by addressing immediate concerns faced by developing countries.
4. Context-Based AI Governance: India’s vision recognised that AI policies should reflect the social and economic realities of the Global South rather than applying one common approach for every country.

Shift in India’s AI Strategy

1. Move Towards AI Investment: The policy focus gradually shifted from AI governance to raising capital for AI development and promoting AI adoption through domestic use cases.
2. Middle Power Positioning: India increasingly projected itself as a middle power, reducing the emphasis on Global South solidarity that had shaped the summit’s original vision.
3. Strategic Alignment with the U.S.: India joined Pax Silica, signalling closer alignment with the U.S.-led semiconductor supply chain and adopting a pro-innovation regulatory approach.
4. Concerns for Strategic Autonomy: This shift raised concerns that India’s growing strategic partnership could weaken its pursuit of strategic autonomy in AI governance.
5. Mismatch with Ground Reality: India’s ambition to stand with countries such as Japan does not fully match its technological capacity, economic development, colonial history and low per capita realities, which continue to place it within the Global South.

Challenges Facing India’s AI Ecosystem

1. Dependence on Foreign AI Technology: Questions remain whether India will mainly become a consumer of U.S. AI technologies, while Indian users bear a larger share of AI-related harms.
2. Resource and Data Extraction: India may increasingly supply data, data-labelling labour, minerals, land, water and electricity that mainly support the growth of American Big Tech.
3. Limited Community Protection: Land has been approved for data centres, leading to community displacement and protests, while meaningful safeguards for affected communities remain weak.
4. Indigenous Knowledge Risks: American companies continue scraping public content to build language and indigenous knowledge datasets without adequate protective guardrails.
5. Weak Domestic Innovation: India still cannot compete with global foundation models, semiconductor development remains focused on low-value assembly, and adequate investment for a strong national AI ecosystem remains uncertain.
6. Slow Technology Growth: Although non-profit organisations are signing agreements to expand AI use cases, this has not significantly strengthened fundamental AI innovation.

Why AI Governance Matters for the Global South

1. Concentration of Economic Power: The growing concentration of AI infrastructure and economic power in the United States raises concerns for developing countries.
2. Uncertain Global Governance: The U.S. has shown little interest in global multilateral and multistakeholder AI governance, creating uncertainty for international AI regulation.
3. Lessons from Social Media: There are concerns that AI may follow the same path as social media, where platform interests received greater protection than user safety.
4. Unequal Distribution of Benefits: Economic gains may largely remain with American companies, while business activities, users and AI-related harms spread across many countries.
5. Need for Fair AI Development: The Global South requires AI governance that protects users and ensures that economic value also remains within national markets.

India’s Opportunity to Lead Global AI Governance

1. Geneva Dialogue as an Opportunity: The UN Global Dialogue on AI (July 6–7, 2026) provides an opportunity to develop collective rules for AI governance through multilateral and multistakeholder cooperation.
2. Bridging a Leadership Gap: India has the political influence, technical capacity and diverse market needed to help bring together a fragmented global AI policy agenda.
3. Public Interest-Based AI Vision: India can promote AI development based on public purpose, user safety, strategic autonomy and international cooperation, instead of acting only as an AI investment destination.
4. Supporting Global South Priorities: India can advocate international norms that help developing countries build local AI ecosystems, strengthen regulation, improve skills and develop domestic infrastructure.
5. Promoting Fair Digital Markets: India can also encourage stronger discussions on competition, consumer protection and fair distribution of AI-generated economic value.

Way Forward

1. Strengthen Global South Cooperation: India should create stronger partnerships among Global South countries to improve agency and strategic autonomy in AI governance.
2. Pool AI Resources: Countries should cooperate in data, computing capacity, interoperable standards, shared governance protocols and technical resources.
3. Build Institutional Capacity: Greater investment is needed to strengthen both regulatory and technical institutionsacross Global South countries.
4. Develop Shared Governance Norms: Common governance principles should ensure that AI benefits are shared fairly while protecting people from harm.
5. Balance Innovation and Sovereignty: India should support AI innovation while protecting strategic autonomy, user interests and domestic economic value.

Conclusion

India’s AI journey now stands between strategic partnerships and Global South leadership. It has the capacity to shape AI governance that promotes equity, user protection, strategic autonomy and international cooperation. By strengthening cooperation among Global South countries and developing shared governance norms, India can help build an AI ecosystem where both the benefits and responsibilities are distributed more fairly.

Question for practice:

Discuss the challenges and opportunities before India in balancing strategic autonomy, AI governance, and leadership of the Global South in the evolving global AI landscape.

Source: The Hindu