On February 11, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a collective global effort to create governance guidelines and establish standards for artificial intelligence at a summit held in Paris.
“We are at the dawn of the AI age that will change the course of humanity,” said Modi in a closing speech of the two-day Artificial Intelligence Action Summit that was attended by world leaders and industry experts. Modi was co-chair with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“There is a need for collective global efforts to establish governance and standards” on AI, said Modi. “Governance is not just about managing risks and rivalries. It is also about promoting innovations,” he added, echoing positions held by France and the European Union.
The summit culminated in the signing of a non-binding declaration by more than 100 countries for “inclusive and sustainable” AI, a statement that was snubbed by the UK and the US.
US vice president JD Vance, who attended the summit, took a combative stance and criticized what he considered to be EU overregulation of the sector and warned against working with China in a speech. The China-US rivalry is heating up after Chinese startup DeepSeek stunned the world by announcing it had created technology akin to ChatGPT developed by Silicon Valley company OpenAI at a fraction of the cost.
Against this backdrop, the EU has said it plans to cut red tape to facilitate the industry’s growth. Macron has announced investments in AI worth EUR 109 billion (USD 113 billion) in his country alone. On February 11, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced that investments worth EUR 200 billion (USD 207.3 billion) will be poured into the industry in Europe, of which a quarter would come from the bloc.
With AI poised for explosive growth in China and the West, Modi pointed to the need for less developed countries to gain access.
“We must think deeply and discuss openly about innovation and governance,” he said, adding that “governance is also about ensuring access to all, especially in the Global South.”
Analysts said his presence will help those countries. India is “putting on the table the interests of many countries who have not been included in this dialogue,” said Patrizia Cogo, a researcher at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) who specializes in India-Europe relations.
Indeed, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said that AI’s “power is in the hands of a handful of people” and that developing nations could be left behind, which “threatens to aggravate geopolitical divisions.” He urged countries to bridge the gap between rich and poor.
Modi and Macron met with around 30 CEOs of French and Indian companies on February 11, before heading to Marseille, where they inaugurated the Indian consulate and visited the port and an international nuclear energy research site where about 200 Indian engineers are working.
France wants to position Marseille as a potential European gateway for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). The project is widely seen as India’s response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in view of growing competition between Beijing and New Delhi.
Marseille is competing with other major ports like Trieste in Italy and Piraeus in Greece, which is owned by China’s state shipping company COSCO, to be IMEC’s end point in the West.
Invest India CEO Nivruti Rai will join the Indian delegation to Marseille. She told Nikkei Asia that that diplomatic relations between India and local governments were central to decisions regarding the IMEC trade route.
“Whenever the relations between India and a country are strong, it’s just easy to do business,” she said, pointing to France as an example.
Both Europe and India “share concerns about dependences on China” and “this corridor also is part of this view,” said CIDOB’s Cogo. “The EU, and in this particular case, France, are reliable partners for India in trying to diminish the risks that India is navigating.”
This move toward Western partners could be “consequential in increasing India’s margin of maneuver vis-a-vis both Russia and China,” she said. Russia is historically close to India and is its first supplier of defense equipment, but New Delhi is trying to diversify from that source.
France is India’s second largest arms supplier, and a significant provider of strategic goods in transport, energy, and aerospace, and aeronautics. The two countries are also discussing a deal on French Rafale jet fighters. Paris is in advanced talks with India to buy a multi-barrel rocket launcher system, a top Indian official said on February 10.
On the sidelines of the summit, Macron also held talks with Zhang Guoqing, China’s vice premier, on February 10. They expressed the “desire of both France and China to play a greater role in the global governance of AI in order to develop its potential while controlling the risks,” the French presidency said in a statement.
President Macron also “reiterated his determination to maintain an open and demanding dialogue with the Chinese authorities, particularly with regard to trade issues between the European Union and China.”
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.