India’s bid to make GPAI as AI regulator gets global support

India has found success in winning over major countries in its attempt to make the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) the apex authority for all matters related to AI including issues pertaining to AI regulations and drawing up a common global framework for AI.

Countries including the US, France, Canada, the UK, Japan, Korea, Brazil, and Argentina have come to an agreement on the issue with a ministerial sign-off and the final negotiation will take place on July 3, government insiders told ET. A final announcement may follow soon after, they added.

“India’s thought process is that GPAI should become a much larger alliance with a much stronger participation of the Global South,” one of the officials said.

India is the current chair of GPAI, a major international initiative focused on responsible development and use of artificial intelligence.

By expanding GPAI to more countries and having it as an apex body, the attempt is to have their greater say in global policy making on AI, which is transforming every sphere of life and enterprise.

Union electronics and information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had in December said New Delhi is negotiating with the 29 member countries of GPAI to come to a consensus on a declaration statement on the proper use of AI, the guardrails for the technology and how it should be treated.

“The world’s thinking on AI is converging. People understand the potential, look to the benefits which can come, and understand the dangers and put certain guardrails. There is convergence on how AI should be treated going forward,” Vaishnaw had said at the curtain raiser GPAI 2023 Summit in New Delhi in December. The earlier three GPAI summits were held in Montreal, Paris, and Tokyo.

The electronics and IT ministry (MeitY) has held intense negotiations over the last six months with its counterparts on inclusion of OECD nations in GPAI along with greater partnership of the Global South in matters related to AI regulation, officials said.

The issues at hand include all matters related to AI such as collaboration across governments, algorithms, common standards, compute capacity, etc. apart from the key issue of regulation.

GPAI started as an alliance of 15 nations and expanded to 29 countries.

India’s proposal intends to turn it into a much larger body with participation of close to 44 countries which will go up to 65 countries by February next year.

“The body is currently dominated by nations from the European Union… There is a very little presence of developing nations, especially the Global South, which India is trying to fight for,” said the official quoted above.

“Currently, there are multiple bodies which are looking at matters related to AI… The effort is directed towards making GPAI into a central and a much stronger body for AI to avoid duplication,” the person added.

In December, 29 member nations of GPAI had unanimously adopted the New Delhi resolution, which promised “to position GPAI at the front and centre of shaping the future of AI in terms of both innovation and creating collaborative AI between partner nations to create applications in healthcare, agriculture and other areas,” MeitY had said then.

All GPAI members had also agreed that the group would lead global conversations on shaping the future of AI governance as well as keeping it safe and trusted.