UN Chief Calls for Global Fund for 'AI for Everyone'
At the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for the creation of a global fund to ensure affordable access to artificial intelligence. The summit, the first of its kind hosted in a developing nation, marked a shift toward global inclusivity in AI governance, with Indian conglomerates also pledging over $100 billion each to build domestic data centers.
- The proposed global fund has a target of $3 billion, which UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted is less than 1% of the annual revenue of a single major technology company. The fund's objective is to build foundational AI capacity in developing countries by investing in skills, data infrastructure, and affordable computing power. - The investment pledges from Indian conglomerates are substantial, with Reliance Industries committing approximately $110 billion over seven years and the Adani Group pledging $100 billion through 2035. Both plans focus on building AI-ready data centers co-located with their own renewable energy assets to ensure a stable and low-cost power supply. - Reliance's plan includes the construction of multi-gigawatt facilities in Jamnagar, Gujarat, with an initial capacity of over 120 megawatts expected to be operational in the second half of 2026. Adani's strategy involves partnerships with global tech giants, including building an AI data center campus with Google in Visakhapatnam and other facilities with Microsoft in Hyderabad. - The summit concluded with the "New Delhi Declaration," a voluntary framework for responsible and inclusive AI development endorsed by 88 countries, including the United States and China. The declaration emphasizes democratizing AI resources and respecting national sovereignty in the face of technology concentrated in the hands of a few Western companies. - As a demonstration of India's domestic capabilities, three sovereign AI models were unveiled at the summit.
