AI royalty — from OpenAI's Sam Altman to Google's Sundar Pichai — has descended on New Delhi for the revolving AI Impact event being hosted by India for the first time.
The summit, which lists "people, planet and progress" as its focus, is expected to feature agenda-setting discussions ranging from the impact of AI on daily lives, to how it is reshaping jobs and the environment.
Demand for services around the week-long event has surged: airfares have jumped, luxury hotels are charging up to $2,000 a night, and the venue is expected to be packed with everyone from top politicians to global business leaders.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pulled out, though, due to "unforeseen circumstances".
India, widely seen as a laggard in AI despite its vast pool of tech talent, is racing to build out its AI capabilities, in what it sees as a $130 billion opportunity by 2032. Companies such as Google and OpenAI are now targeting the world's most populous nation as their next major growth market.
With more than 800 million internet users and abundant data, India is a tantalising prospect for AI's growth, but it won't be easy, Reuters Breakingviews columnist Ujjaini Dutta writes in this piece.
The summit coincides with growing worries of AI's disruptive power in markets at home and abroad. Stocks across India's IT sector have been pummelled recently on such worries.
And Indian regulators are trying to balance the technology's risks and rewards.
One of the biggest risks for India - where formal jobs remain scarce - is the potential hit to employment. Call centres, a mainstay of India's services economy, are already feeling the impact. Reuters journalists Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra reported on the new wave of AI chatbots replacing human agents.
"Rapid, uncalibrated deployment of AI may boost output but risks displacing segments of the workforce faster than the economy can reabsorb them," Chief Economic Adviser to the Indian government V. Anantha Nageswaran warned in a report last month.
Nageswaran flagged two other concerns: the opacity of many AI models and the heavy demand for data centres - infrastructure that could strain an already resource‑constrained economy.
The India File explored these risks in an earlier edition; catch up here if you missed it.
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