The Paris AI Action Summit: The global divide

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CWA # 1923

State of Global Politics 2025

The Paris AI Action Summit: The global divide

The World This Week #338, Vol 7, No 52, 31 December 2025

Padmashree Anandhan
31 December 2025

What happened?
During 10 and 11 February, France’s government held the AI Action Summit co-hosted with India bringing stakeholders from all levels and sizes to achieve a collective progress for a sustainable AI. The leaders focused on creating a “diverse and inclusive AI ecosystem,” which would be ethical, safe and trustworthy.

The declaration titled “Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet” was signed by 60 countries to ensure AI development technology to benefit humanity. The top priorities of the declaration includes: “Promoting AI accessibility to reduce digital divides; Ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all;Making AI innovation thrive by enabling conditions for its development.”

In a joint statement released by France’s President Emmanuel Macron and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured: To take concrete actions to ensure that the global AI sector can drive beneficial social, economic and environmental outcomes in the public interest.”

In a statement released by India’s Ministry of external affairs on Modi’s speech in the summit: “The world was at the dawn of the AI age where this technology was fast writing the code for humanity and re-shaping our polity, economy, security and society. Emphasizing that AI was very different from other technological milestones in human history in terms of impact.”

During his speech in the summit, US Vice President JD Vance said: “Stringent regulations could “kill a transformative industry” and criticized European regulatory frameworks for imposing “massive regulations” and creating “endless legal compliance costs” for companies.” He also condemned the moderation attempt as a step to “authoritarian censorship.” Whereas, UK’s spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “We felt that the declaration didn’t provide enough practical clarity on global governance.”

What is the background?
First, AI in geopolitics. In the Summit, France and India recognised the influence of AI in the big power dynamics which could play critical in shaping future alliances and conflicts. Both stressed on opting a balanced approach to deter the AI arms race and encourage global stability. The summit showcased AI as a shaping tool of geopolitics and not as technology. It also brought out the need for cautious management and regulation. At the big power level, several have begun to develop AI technologies, especially the US, China and the EU to dominate the field and strengthen defence capabilities mainly for economic leverage. This has led to competition over intellectual property and trade. It has also sparked debate on global governance frameworks to keep AI innovative, open and ethical.

Second, strengthening France-India partnership on AI development. One of the key outcomes of the summit is closer cooperation between France and India in AI. Both have recognised the benefit of AI as a drive to economic and bilateral partnership. This can be applied through collaboration of France’s advanced technological infrastructure and India’s tech workforce to address the global challenges via AI. The summit also witnessed several agreements between both fostering AI research initiatives and solution focusing on public welfare, including healthcare and education. Some examples to the partnership would be AI innovation centres where France aims to create a conducive ecosystem for innovation in healthcare, agriculture and building smart cities. Both are also involved in projects relating to disaster management, building AI talent through workshops, education and training to promote researchers and policy makers.

Third, ethical and inclusive AI at the prime focus of the summit. Major discussion in the summit revolved around ethical implications, and international regulations. France and India called for global framework to address the issues relating to privacy, bias, and the potential misuse of AI. Two AI acts by the EU and India focused on AI governance mechanisms which were highlighted in the summit. It also promoted interests of humanity, fairness and accountability. Apart from this, technological developments was the second most focused issue with stress on ensuring the equal distribution of AI benefits. India’s stance in the summit indicated the importance of ensuring the accessibility of AI to developing stated and addressing challenges through “cutting-edge innovations.”

Fourth, strategic positioning of the US. The summit was led by France and India, however the role of the US in the global AI ecosystem was under focus. The US was viewed as a technological powerhouse with advanced AI, but it’s stance on the international front was seen as cautious. Although US did make significant advances in the AI research, it had put forward concerns, over global regulation, which could hinder innovation or its national security interests. In the summit, France and India called for an inclusive approach to AI governance and urge the US to take part in setting international standards. However, US’s stance stressed on the competitive component, and the risk of China. This was also reflected in Vance’s speech. He warned over China’s rapid developments in AI and how it could threaten economic and national interest of the US. He argued on the AI regulation to be promoting innovation, ensuring national security without over regulation. The stance of the US also shows the complexity in establishing a united global AI framework.

Fifth, China’s participation and signing of the AI declaration. In the AI summit, China did not have a key roll in the discussions. It’s signing of the declaration was symbolic calling for a shared approach to AI governance. However, China’s participation was was viewed with scepticism as its AI policies, focus on its national security and surveillance, which clashes with principles of transparency and ethics. By signing, China can be observed to be positioning itself as a country with interest in global AI governance, but it’s adherence to global expectations especially on data, privacy, surveillance, and military applications remain unknown.

What does this mean?
Divide among the big powers in global AI governance. The AI summit was successful in recognising the importance for an inclusive and transparent AI ecosystem. However, it also reflects the deep divide among the developed countries or the AI advanced countries over regulating and harnessing the AI technology. Although 60 countries signed the declaration for an ethical AI development, the US and the UK chose not to be part of it. This was mainly over concerns relating to restrictive regulations and larger geopolitical tensions which where predicted to increase as AI shapes, the economic competition, global influence and mainly national security. The AI summit not only brought out the gaps in AI development, but also give glimpse of its significant role in the big power dynamics.

About the author
Padmashree Anandhan is a Project Associate at NIAS, Bengaluru.

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