The session, which took place on Wednesday in the national capital’s Bharat Mandapam, was part of the Global IndiaAI Summit. It brought together dignitaries from ministries and international corporations to discuss the future of collaborative AI.

Prof. Sachin Chaturvedi Director General at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi, moderated the session, and the panel saw keynote speeches from the following experts:

• Rohit Rathish, JS DPA - III, Ministry of External Affairs,
• Sushil Pal, JS, ICD, MeitY
• Debjani Ghosh, President, Nasscom, 
• Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Asia South, Nvidia, 
• Jerry Sheehan of the OECD, 
• Dr. Kalika Bali from Microsoft, 
• Anirudh Suri is the managing partner of the India Internet Fund. 

The discussion also included Amazon Web Services (AWS) representatives and MeitY Additional Secretary Abhishek Singh.

Prof. Chaturvedi highlighted that e-payment transactions have grown 3.5 times more in the Global South. A recent paper by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sheds light on the gravitas of digitalising trade in a few countries.

Rathish ended his keynote by saying, “We are at a tipping point of human history, ideas, choices, and actions today, and we let go deeply into the future across generations. Those generations must coexist and hopefully thrive with this new digital species we've created.”

Joint Secretary Sushil Pal of the ICD shed light on how, from the global health perspective, AI is undoubtedly the most transformative technology of the century, compared to the printing press or electricity, and holds extraordinary potential.

The challenge for developing economies is setting a standard, further deepening the technology divide and creating a socio-technical challenge. It also widens the income gap, as a few wealthy nations and firms capture the technology.

Pal said the issue is deploying labour in the populous nations of the Global South. With a skill gap and AI automation, emerging technologies like GenAI will upend the process of creating jobs.

He noted that there is also a challenge from the inequitable distribution of AI resources.

NASSCOM President Debjani Ghosh said the two truths of AI throw up a challenge of immense transformation versus a lack of AI solving a targeted problem at scale despite the enormous investments in the segment.

Posing a question on how it can be ensured everyone benefits from AI, she noted that this was a “fantastic opportunity for the Global South with a focus on how do we make AI real, applicable and work for us.”

She also highlighted the challenge of talent density, and how Indians working on AI can be brought back from the West to advance the technology in India.

Speaking on regulation, she said it is “so early in the AI journey” to place guardrails on the technology.

Ghosh proposed creating an ecosystem where innovation thrives with ethics, bringing the focus back to human centricity.

“There is a lot of talk about putting humans in an AI loop, but it should be about putting AI in the human loop,” she pointed.

Jerry Sheehan of the OECD focused the panel on collaborative AI, emphasizing global partnerships in AI and opening the gateway to the Global South.

He added that an inclusive framework that benefits the 38 OECD nations and 44 GPAI countries and focuses more on securing AI and making it trustworthy is required.

Reiterating that AI development is centred in a few countries, Sheehan said the 250 experts on GPAI and about 500 from the OECD must be combined to meet responsive policy needs. “Data flows free with trust,” Sheehan pointed out.

Dr Subi Chaturvedi of InMobi emphasised the need for public good in emerging technologies like AI and public consultation since not all stakeholder voices are present in such consultations and deliberations.

Dhupar from NVIDIA spoke on how humanity is being augmented by the panel and AI stakeholders to create a safe and trusted experience for disruption and innovation.

“In the Global South, thanks to UPI, a chaiwala (tea vendor) in Nariman Point (in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India) is no longer interested in cash since it saves him time going to the bank for a deposit, and these are learnings that come from scale,” he said.

Jaya Jagdish, Country Head and Senior Vice President at AMD India discussed promoting the Indian talent pool through academic partnerships to supply talent to the world.

Microsoft’s Kalika Bali said AI poses an opportunity to make lives easier in the Global South, with applications in industry, startups and providing skilled labour. However, she emphasised the need for a multilingual, multicultural approach and framework for the technology since “it cannot be in a single language.”

Annabelle Lee, who heads policy for AWS said the question of inclusivity in the global south is complicated, adding that the need of the hour is to make transmission smooth through a workable roadmap.