Macron's initiative did carry overtones of Europe’s tech rivalry with the US, and roping in India seems to be a ploy against DeepSeek-basking China. Here is the first of a 2-part series about what happened at the Paris Summit, and why it has all the global players in a game of one-upmanship
French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi co-chaired the AI Action Summit in Paris, bringing together global leaders to discuss the future of artificial intelligence (AI). Amid the churn and chaos unleashed by China's DeepSeek, there was greater international attention on the largely French initiative. For obvious reasons, it was riddled with political tensions and undertones, with the US and the UK declining to sign the declaration.
Read Part 2: Political cold wars and the big fight for AI pie
There was more drama with another totally unexpected announcement: that India would host the next such event. This is bound to unleash Modi’s characteristic overdrive in promoting AI at home and further sell India as a major emerging AI power in the few months and years. In fact, his opening address to the Paris summit said it all.
AI geopolitics
The Paris summit perhaps was not intended to be a mere tech summit. It turned out, first and foremost, to be a political event. The very idea behind French President Emmanuel Macron holding it, making Modi the co-chair and steering clear of the main two AI superpowers, the United States and China, was probably intended to project a resurgent image of an otherwise tech-dormant Europe, relegated to a distant third position after the US and China.
Also Read: AI Vishwaguru? India’s mission is barely taking baby steps
Hence, the Macron initiative did carry overtones of Europe’s tech rivalry with the US in the AI arena. Roping in India was also intended to be a manoeuvre against China, another geopolitical tech giant.
Vance takes on Europe
Anticipating this, Vice-President JD Vance, who represented the US in Paris, blasted Europe. However, there was a dissonance in the respective positions stated at the summit by the AI rivals, Europe and the US.
The rivalry did not centre on the substantial issue of how much finance each competing AI power would commit to invest in the coming years. Rather, Vance only joined issue with Europe on its regulatory obsession.
While European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen declared that the European Commission aimed to mobilize a total of 200 billion euros for investment in the field of AI and proclaimed a new AI initiative called InvestAI, which she said would provide an additional 50 billion euros for AI projects across Europe, Vance did not declare any round figure. Instead, he chose to castigate Europe for its stress on AI regulation from the safety point of view.
Macron passes the ball to Modi
Macron, the chief host, chose to avoid delivering any inaugural address and smartly lobbed the ball onto Modi's court. But he pledged an investment of 109 billion Euros (around $113 billion) in AI. Modi, in his opening address, declared that India would invest $1.2 billion (Rs.10,372 crore) in AI in contrast to its new-found ally, Europe. That gave an indication how India's trying to grab the AI radar. But there is a caveat.
However, this figure of Rs.10,372 crore had already been announced as investment for India’s AI Mission and nothing new was articulated by Modi on India’s AI venture. Ironically, almost this entire amount would be spent on buying 10,000 GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) from the American tech behemoth Nvidia. Talk about India’s much-proclaimed tech sovereignty!
Although Vance also did not bother to declare any striking figure of proposed investment in AI by the US, Washington has invested $328.5 billion in AI and hence clearly leads the AI race.
China makes a statement, and mum on DeepSeek
China was represented at the summit by Vice-Premier Zhang Guoqing who was President Xi Jinping’s special representative. Zhang merely waxed eloquent in general about China’s focus on innovation in AI and readiness for global cooperation but did not declare any specific figure of imminent AI investment in China.
He did not even bother to repeat Bank of China’s announcement of its commitment to provide at least 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in funding support to companies in the AI sector. His sole thrust was on underlining global cooperation in AI besides deflecting Western criticism of massive state support to AI development.
Strangely, Zhang scrupulously avoided any mention of the radical impact of the Chinese star-up DeepSeek. This is perhaps China’s strategy to counter the US-EU joint move to isolate China on AI.
America versus regulation
Vance delivered his address immediately after Modi and his speech was full of fireworks directed at Europe. He challenged Europe’s regulatory approach to AI which is going to the extent of even moderating the content on Big Tech platforms. He, however, did not name India though New Delhi is proposing to do the same.
DeepSeek versus OpenAI: How the real Artificial Intelligence fight is heating up
Vance singled out the European Union’s Digital Services Act and slammed it for demanding the taking down of controversial content and policing digital data flow for any “misinformation”. India has enough reasons to worry about this. Although Vance did not name India and Indian laws, the Information Technology Act 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 do exactly what the EU’s Digital Services Act is doing.
Would American anger in this regard translate into any restrictive measures against the EU and India in the days to come by an unpredictable Donald Trump? The American presentation at the summit has evoked such apprehensions.
Modi’s critical silence
However, Modi stayed silent on this contentious issue and instead tried a bit of self-promotion, as always. The circumspection is understandable as Modi is flying from Paris to the US for a pow-wow with his “friend” Donald Trump.
Despite being at loggerheads, the US and the EU attacked China with a unified voice at the summit for being an authoritarian regime looking to use AI for increased control of citizens at home and other countries abroad. India, again, took no position on this as well.
Non-consensual ‘joint statement’
At the conclusion of the summit, a joint statement signed by 60 countries was issued. The declaration emphasized the importance of making AI development open, inclusive, ethical and safe. Opposing the first three conditions, the US did not sign the declaration. Ironically, host France could not even ensure a united European stance.
The UK, too, refused to sign the declaration, citing unspecified “national interests”. Probably, the UK did not want to offend the US by transcending the time-tested transatlantic partnership and the special relationship it shares with the US.
Where summit flopped
If at all there are areas in which the summit in Paris is a flop, it is its failure to come up with any path-breaking decisions in the five objectives outlined for the summit.
The objectives were: 1. Ensuring greater access to AI Infrastructure; 2. Responsible use of AI; 3. Sustainable AI development; 4. Effective AI governance through regulation; and 5. Collaboration and knowledge sharing. What exactly did the summit achieve in these five areas?
Major takeaways from the summit
A new initiative called Current AI was announced, which involved a public-private partnership to the tune of $400 million aimed at AI infrastructure. However, details of how this amount would be raised and in which countries and projects this money would be spent are not yet available.
The summit emphasised the establishment of ethical guidelines for AI usage prioritising public interest and safety. However, on the eve of the event, US tech giant Google gave up its commitment to not using AI for weapons development. Sundar Pichai was a prominent participant in Paris.
Discussions at the summit led to the proposal for creating effective governance frameworks to regulate AI technologies, ensuring they align with the objectives of safety, accessibility and ethical use. But politics exploded on this issue. The US refused to sign the declaration, objecting mainly to this clause. Vance devoted his entire speech to harp on US opposition to any regulation, a pet theme of Europe.
AI Knowledge Network
There was a strong push for international collaboration to share knowledge and best practices which is crucial not only for countries of the Global South but also for emerging powers like India, Brazil and South Africa. In this regard, the summit has proposed the establishment of a Global AI Knowledge Network.
The proposal included the launching of open data platforms. Although this is an interesting and radical proposal, the details are not available yet. The world has seen how the open source software of the tiny DeepSeek sent the US tech giants reeling. Will the proposed Global AI Knowledge Network take on the huge corporate giants which monopolise tech knowledge as well as the opaque authoritarian AI monsters like China in a similar manner? It remains to be seen.
The summit highlighted the need for investments in training and developing talent in AI. Again, no definite numbers of people who would be skilled or re-skilled were bandied about. AI in India alone would require skilling at least 2 million workforce. But this is a summit where definite numbers went missing.
