India, France form joint roadmap for safe AI

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India and France unveiled a collaborative roadmap to develop safe, secure, and reliable artificial intelligence (AI) as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed strengthening cooperation in science and innovation within their bilateral strategic partnership.

The two leaders expressed their support for including Indian startups at the French Startup Incubator Station F. They also welcomed the expanded opportunities to utilize India’s real-time payment system, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), in France, according to a joint statement.

On February 10-11, France and India co-chaired the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit, which gathered heads of state and government, leaders of international organizations, small and large enterprises, representatives of academia, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), artists, and members of civil society.

“India and France have worked together for years through initiatives like the International Solar Alliance to harness the power of the Sun. As we advance our partnership to AI, it is a natural progression from sustainability to innovation to shape a smarter and responsible future,” Modi said at the AI Action Summit in Paris.

“At the same time, sustainable AI does not only mean using clean energy. AI models must also be efficient and sustainable in size, data needs, and resources requirements,” Modi told the gathering.

Modi pointed out that India has successfully built a digital public infrastructure for over 1.4 billion people at a very low cost. He said it is built around an open and accessible network, has regulations, and has a wide range of applications to modernize India’s economy, reform governance, and transform people’s lives.

“We have unlocked the power of data through our data empowerment and protection architecture. We have made digital commerce democratic and accessible to all. This vision is the foundation of India National AI mission,” Modi said in his speech.

The prime minister emphasized that AI can help transform millions of lives by improving health, education, and agriculture, among others. It can help create a world where the journey to sustainable development goals becomes easier and faster. But to do this, Modi said that nations must pull together resources and talent.

“We must develop open-source systems that enhance trust and transparency. We must build quality data sets free from biases. We must democratize technology and create people-centric applications. We must address concerns related to cyber security disinformation and deepfakes, and we must also ensure that technology is rooted in local ecosystems for it to be effective and useful,” Modi stated.

“Today, India leads in AI adoption and techno-legal solutions on data privacy. We are developing AI applications for public good. We have one of the world’s largest AI talent pools. India is building its own large language model considering our diversity. We also have a unique public-private partnership model for pulling resources like compute power. It is made available to our startups and researchers at an affordable cost,” Modi added.

Macron and Modi emphasized their commitment to taking tangible steps to ensure that the global AI sector fosters positive social, economic, and environmental outcomes for the public good. According to the joint statement, both leaders stressed the strategic significance of cyberspace and expressed their intention to improve collaboration at the United Nations on enforcing international law and advancing the framework for responsible state behavior in cyberspace. They also pointed out the necessity of addressing the risks associated with the proliferation of harmful cyber tools and practices.

“AI is developing at an unprecedented scale and speed and being adapted and deployed even faster. There is also a deep interdependence across borders. Therefore, there is a need for collective global efforts to establish governance and standards that upload our shared values, address risk, and build trust,” Modi told the gathering of CEOs and world leaders in Paris.

“But governance is not just about managing risks and rivalries. It is also about promoting innovation and deploying it for the global good. So, we must think deeply and discuss openly about innovation and governance. Governance is also about ensuring access to all, especially in the global South. It is where the capabilities are most lacking, be it compute, power, talent, data, or the financial resources,” Modi pointed out.

India-France declaration on AI

Acknowledging the progress in developing AI, India and France will seek to ensure that norms and standards governing their use reflect democratic values, and harness the potential of AI for human development and common good, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

India and France reaffirmed their commitment to promoting safe, secure, and trustworthy AI to support the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Building on the 2023 Memorandum of Understanding on digital cooperation and ahead of the 2026 India-France Year of Innovation, both nations will collaborate to shape AI’s development and ensure its positive impact on their economies and societies.

According to the India-France declaration on AI, both countries emphasized the importance of creating a framework to make sure AI complies with laws related to intellectual property, privacy, and personal data use. The two countries also highlighted that AI and generative AI are developed without causing discrimination, inequality, or the spread of misinformation, avoiding the amplification of biases.

Both countries support the creation of open and accessible resources for countries, innovators, researchers, and citizens to encourage decentralization and prevent monopolization of this transformative technology. Furthermore, they intend to ensure that AI systems are developed for global benefit, including areas like health, sustainable agriculture, education, climate change, disaster management, biodiversity, energy, and food security.

Both nations emphasize that generative AI should support linguistic and cultural diversity.

Moreover, they aim to pursue and expand their bilateral cooperation, particularly to foster industrial partnerships between their countries, such as for electronic components or computing capacities. They also intend to deepen research partnerships for the development of broad, open and freely reusable large language models (LLMs) trained to support and promote linguistic diversity, while supporting academic research on social consequences of AI development.

They also encouraged civil society initiatives on AI, aiming to foster exchanges among entrepreneurs, researchers, and public actors in the field of AI and establish stronger cooperation regarding child safety online by developing concrete synergies between ongoing initiatives supported by the two countries.

According to the India-France declaration on AI, the two nations intend to continue supporting the emergence of digital public infrastructures for AI by promoting shared objectives and the development of common resources in the fields of data, personal data protection, open-source tools, and capacity building.

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