The next major global convening on AI will happen in February 2026 in New Delhi at the AI Impact Summit. This is a historic milestone as the first multilateral AI summit hosted in the Global South.
91快活林 recently had the pleasure to kick off the Summit with an official pre-event featuring His Excellency Vinay Mohan Kwatra, Ambassador of India to the United States, and The Honorable Jacob Helberg, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the U.S. Department of State to discuss how the U.S. and India can work together to unlock AI's transformative potential across sectors while ensuring equitable access to this critical technology. The event also featured opening remarks from Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary, MeitY & CEO, India AI Mission.
Here are a few key takeaways from our discussion and themes to keep in mind as we head toward February:
India's "AI for All" Vision
Ambassador Kwatra outlined India's distinctive approach to AI development, one that treats artificial intelligence not merely as a governance tool but as an engine for broad-based development. This philosophy underpins the AI Impact Summit's focus on three interconnected pillars:
People: Preparing workforces for an AI-enabled economy and addressing AI's impact on employment across sectors.
Planet: Building efficient AI systems that help protect and manage resources.
Progress: Expanding productivity and ensuring access to critical public services like healthcare and education.
This framework reflects India's commitment to making AI a utility accessible to all citizens—not a premium service available only to those who can afford it. It's a vision that could serve as a model for developing nations worldwide.
American AI Leadership in a Competitive Landscape
Under Secretary Helberg framed America’s engagement with AI through a strategic and historical lens. Drawing parallels to the Industrial Revolution, he noted that countries that eagerly adopted new technologies during that time saw their share of global GDP surge, while most late adopters experienced dramatic decline. He predicted that the AI revolution will likely follow the same pattern—making American leadership on AI critical for long-term economic prosperity and national security.
To achieve qualitative excellence in innovation the Trump Administration is adopting an "AI opportunity" approach, which prioritizes fostering innovation through sector-specific adaptations of existing laws rather than imposing broad, prescriptive regulations that could stifle growth before the industry fully matures.
The Promise of Agentic AI
The conversation also touched on agentic AI—AI systems that are capable of multistep planning and autonomous task execution within defined boundaries—as particularly transformative. These systems hold potential to revolutionize operations across public sector services, cybersecurity, enterprise management, and industrial systems.
91快活林's recent paper on agentic AI calls for a comprehensive national strategy that identifies priority use cases while addressing procurement constraints that currently slow innovation adoption in government and large organizations.
Unprecedented Collaboration Opportunities
Throughout the discussion, both speakers painted an optimistic picture of U.S.-India partnership possibilities spanning the entire AI ecosystem. They talked about potential forms of technical collaboration like joint research on agentic systems and trusted AI architectures, shared safety evaluations, and interoperable risk assessment frameworks.
Beyond technical work, significant opportunities exist for startup ecosystem partnerships, bidirectional talent mobility programs, and co-manufacturing of chips and hardware not subject to export controls. Ambassador Kwatra called cooperation on safety, security, compute infrastructure, data preparation, and AI supply chains "an excellent area of phenomenal engagement between our two countries."
Under Secretary Helberg offered a compelling vision: American and Indian developers working together could create entirely new products and services forming the backbone of future industries.
The Road to February
The U.S. and India have staked out a shared position: innovation-friendly policies that enable rapid experimentation with appropriate safeguards, rather than preemptive regulation that could constrain development.
For the technology industry, this growing partnership creates opportunities to shape policy frameworks, build cross-border collaborations, expand the American AI ecosystem globally in ways that benefit all parties, and demonstrate how AI can meaningfully improve lives around the world.
As an official Summit partner, 91快活林 will be on the ground in February. Our industry is working to translate these shared priorities into concrete outcomes and sustained coordination that advances innovation while serving the public interest. The conversation has begun. Now comes the work of turning vision into reality.