India's AI governance push takes center stage at summit

DW News · Feb 20, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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India hosted tens of tens of thousands of delegates from over a hundred countries for an artificial intelligence summit this week. The guest list included those shaping the future of AI, such as Sam Altman of OpenAI, Sundar Pichai of Google, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Demis Hassabis of DeepMind. Heads of state, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Brazil's Lula da Silva, along with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, also attended. Although India used the summit to portray itself as a player in the global AI race, including by platforming home-grown AI startups, its place in that world remains more modest than the optics suggested. However, even if India is not developing frontier AI models, the summit showed New Delhi wants its voice heard about the impacts of AI on developing countries and on whose terms AI is built and deployed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the tone in his inaugural address. "AI is a transformative power. If directionless, it becomes a disruption; if the right direction is found, it becomes a solution, he said, adding the summit was focused on "how to make AI from machine-centric to human-centric; how to make it sensitive and responsive?" India is the first developing country to host a global AI summit, as Delhi continues to position itself as a voice for the Global South on issues shaping the world. The first such gathering, titled the "AI Safety Summit," was held at Bletchley Park near London in November 2023, centred on existential risks. South Korea hosted the 2024 summit with a similar focus on safety. In 2025, Paris hosted the "AI Action Summit," focusing on governance and coordination among advanced economies. India's rendition, titled the "AI Impact Summit" emphasized "inclusive growth" and a "sustainable future." India's AI power playTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video India's crackdown on AI deepfakes The summit's emphasis on ensuring responsible use of AI comes as India is still working out how that responsibility will be enforced at home. Just days before delegates arrived in Delhi, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology directed social media platforms to take down AI-generated content that has been flagged as problematic by authorities within three hours, or two hours in cases involving sexual material. The rules, which came into effect on Friday, reflect growing concern over AI's capacity to distort public discourse and influence democratic processes. Experts are sceptical if the rules will have a widespread impact. AI content can be created and circulated in minutes, often well before any takedown can occur. "While the summit seems to generate a spectacle, any tangible outcomes can only be judged over a longer horizon," said Prateek Waghre, a researcher at the Tech Global Institute. The immediate impact for Indians will be the new content rules that drastically reduce compliance timelines, he added. "These will have adverse impacts on the rights of Indians as platform efforts to comply will likely lead to more content takedowns," he told DW. Pawan Duggal, a cybersecurity expert and AI legal scholar, told DW that India's AI sector is expanding rapidly, but its legal system has not kept pace. "AI is still governed mainly by the Information Technology Act of 2000, a pre-AI law that offers no clear rules on liability, AI-generated content, security, or accountability. Courts are forced to stretch old provisions, creating uncertainty for citizens, businesses, and regulators," Duggal told DW.India seeks to become an AI superpowerTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Rules for tech giants It will also be mandatory for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube to clearly label what the government calls "synthetically generated information." The labels must be permanent markings that can't be suppressed or removed. Duggal said the absence of AI-specific cybersecurity laws means India relies on rules that do not address modern risks. The new labelling rules mark progress, he said, but only address a narrow slice of the problem. "Other regions, including through the EU AI Act, have enacted dedicated AI laws. India urgently needs a comprehensive framework to match its global ambitions," he said. The complaint and enforcement process under the new rules remains complex and is unlikely to be easy for ordinary users to navigate. With these rules, India joins the EU, the US, China, and Australia in regulating AI-generated content. Not everyone sees the rules as a burden. Some view mandatory labelling as a tool to strengthen copyright protection and curb the misuse of synthetic media. But artists and advertisers are less certain. "Labelling every AI-generated piece I create feels like a straightjacket," Prateek Mehta, a digital artist based in Mumbai told DW. "It slows the creative process and makes me second-guess what I post. I understand the need for transparency, but the rules could end up discouraging experimentation and limiting how artists engage with new tools." Summit focused on deploying AI responsibly The conversations at the summit this week also focused on how AI can be used in the developing world, with affordable deployment, indigenous large-language models (LLMs), AI for healthcare and education. The argument made repeatedly across sessions was that genuine AI leadership is measured not by the power of the models one builds, but by the difference they can make on the ground. Arnav Joshi, partner at Perkins Coie, a US-headquartered law firm specializing in technology, told DW the summit's message carries significance. "The shift in focus from safety to action and now to impact is interesting, as is the distinction being drawn between western approaches to AI governance and the rest of the world," Joshi told DW. Joshi believes the fundamentals still matter. "Safety, fairness, transparency, and legal accountability are key to AI development. It is important that we keep acknowledging and committing to common ground that resonates equally around the world," he said. He is cautiously optimistic about India's prospects. "If these can be balanced meaningfully for AI development, India has all the ingredients to be a global AI powerhouse," he said. India's AI expansions stress water supplies near DelhiTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video But not everyone is convinced. Some critics argue that by seating technology corporations alongside governments as equal stakeholders, summits like this one quietly normalize corporate influence over the very rules meant to govern them. Apar Gupta, founding director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, warned that the summit's design "treats global tech companies as equals to national governments." This makes it normal "for AI firms to directly shape governance rules alongside states in what is framed as inclusive stakeholder engagement," Gupta told DW. "When the event's agenda does not reflect its promises of democratization, and policy commitments rarely translate into action, the summit functions primarily as political theater rather than a venue for meaningful reform." Edited by: Wesley Rahn