Tech billionaires join leaders of the global south as Modi hosts AI summit in Delhi

Silicon Valley tech billionaires will land in Delhi this week for an Al summit hosted by India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, where leaders of the global south will wrestle for control over the fast-developing technology.

- Robert Booth UK technology editor

During the week-long AI Impact Summit, attended by thousands of tech executives, government officials and Al safety experts, tech companies worth trillions of dollars will rub along with leaders of countries such as Kenya and Indonesia, where average wages are well below $1,000 a month.

Amid a push to speed up AI adoption across the globe, Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, the bosses of Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, will all be there. Rishi Sunak and George Osborne will each be pushing for greater adoption of AI. Sunak has taken jobs with Microsoft and Anthropic, and Osborne leads OpenAI’s push to deepen and widen the use of ChatGPT beyond its existing 800 million users.

Meanwhile Modi, who is to address the summit tomorrow, is positioning India as the Al hub for south Asia and Africa. On the agenda will be Al’s potential to transform agriculture, water supplies and public health, and governments in Kenya, Senegal, Mauritius, Togo, Indonesia and Egypt will send ministers.