India, France stress on democratised access to AI at Paris roundtable

French President Emmanuel Macron and PM Narendra Modi at the Elysee Palace as part of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit in Paris. (Courtesy: Reuters photo)

India and France have emphasised on the need for democratised access to Artificial Intelligence (AI) resources and capacity building while recognising the importance of the techno-legal frameworks.

Addressing a roundtable session in Paris through videoconferencing, principal scientific advisor to the government of India, Ajay Kumar Sood, said India and France need to synergise on various policy positions and technological initiatives, fostering benefits not only at the bilateral level, but also on a global scale by leveraging complementary knowledge and skill sets.

The roundtable was held on the Sciences Po campus in Paris University on Monday on the margins of the AI Action Summit, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will co-chair with French President Emmaneul Macron on Tuesday.

Sood said India's priorities in global AI policy and governance include responsible AI development and deployment, equitable benefit sharing, adoption of a techno-legal framework for AI governance, interoperable data flows, and collaboration on AI safety, research and innovation.

The roundtable was co-chaired by Amit A Shukla, joint secretary, cyber diplomacy division, Ministry of External Affairs, and Henri Verdier, Ambassador for digital affairs, French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

The participants highlighted the significance of sovereign AI models, ethical AI deployment and the need to define globally accepted terminologies and standards.

The roundtable also shared views on multilingual LLMs, federated AI compute infrastructure, and interoperable access to AI research, datasets, and high-performance computing resources.

The meeting covered key discussions on collaborations between India and France and highlighted the opportunities in creating indigenous foundation models and adopting a balanced governance approach to minimise risks while fostering innovation.

Sustainable AI and energy-efficient computing were highlighted, alongside the importance of cross-border cooperation in AI research, datasets and startups, an official statement said.

The conversation also touched on AI's societal impact, data governance, and the role of global institutions in shaping AI safety frameworks.