Notes from Asia-Pacific region: AI Impact Summit showcases global vision toward responsible AI

The India AI Impact Summit 2026, which took place in New Delhi from 16–20 Feb., has been the big news in India this past month. For me, the IAPP leadership team's visit to India — its first ever — was a big event, as well. It was a delight to meet some of the leaders whom I have had the pleasure of meeting earlier only at IAPP events in Brussels, Washington, D.C. and Singapore. I do hope this is the first of many more, considering how much action there is in the "Global South."

The headlines covering the AI Impact Summit are not surprising given the sheer scale of the event. One hundred-plus countries participated, with 20-plus heads of government in attendance, as well as 60-plus ministers and senior government officials and 40-plus CEOs of major global and Indian companies. The Summit spread across 70,000 square meters, with 10 thematic arenas and 13 country pavilions with 300-plus exhibitors generating a footfall of 500,000 visitors. And there were 500-plus sessions during the event. One interesting fact reported was about a Guinness-record activity where 250,946 students pledged to use artificial intelligence responsibly.

To call things busy is an understatement. As expected, a host of AI-related initiatives were announced. 

In his inaugural address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined India's vision for AI, titled M.A.N.A.V. Incidentally, "manav" means "a human being" in Sanskrit. Modi explained that it stands for: moral and ethical systems — AI must be based on ethical guidelines; accountable governance — transparent rules and robust oversight; national sovereignty — data belongs to its rightful owner; accessible and inclusive — AI must not be a monopoly, but a multiplier; and valid and legitimate — AI must be lawful and verifiable.

He also talked of various trust-related issues. For example, how deepfakes and fabricated content are destabilizing open societies and the need for labels of authenticity for viewers. He emphasized the urgent need for global standards for trust in this context.

The Summit's most significant outcome was the AI Impact Summit Declaration. Released 21 Feb., 91 countries and international organizations signed the multilateral declaration. Its preamble states, "Inspired by the principle of 'Sarvajan Hitaay, Sarvajan Sukhaay' (Welfare for all, Happiness of all), we believe that AI's promise is best realized only when its benefits are shared by humanity." 

The Declaration outlines seven "Chakras," or pillars: democratizing AI resources; economic growth and social good; secure and trusted AI; science; access for social empowerment; human capital; and resilience, innovation and efficiency. 

Several voluntary global initiatives were also announced, including:

• The Charter for the Democratic Diffusion of AI to promote affordable access to foundational AI resources and support locally relevant innovation ecosystems. 
• The Global AI Impact Commons, a platform to scale and replicate AI use cases globally and enable cross-country collaboration for development impact.
• The Trusted AI Commons, a repository of tools, benchmarks and best practices that supports the development of secure and trustworthy AI systems.
• The International Network of AI for Science Institutions, facilitating global scientific collaboration and enhancing AI-driven research capabilities.
• The AI for Social Empowerment Platform to enable knowledge exchange and scalable solutions with a focus on equitable AI adoption.
• AI Workforce Development Playbook and Reskilling Principles to support AI skilling, reskilling and literacy to prepare nations for an AI-driven economy.
• Guiding Principles on Resilient and Efficient AI, focusing on energy-efficient AI systems, supported by a Playbook on AI Infrastructure Resilience.

Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw announced the New Delhi Frontier AI Impact Commitments with an aim of democratizing AI access and innovation. This brings together leading frontier AI companies and India's domestic innovators for inclusive and responsible AI. 

The first commitment, "Advancing Understanding of Real-World AI Usage," will focus on real-world AI use through anonymized and aggregated insights that would equip policymaking on the impact of AI on jobs, skills, productivity and economic transformation. 

The second commitment, "Strengthening Multilingual and Contextual Evaluations," focuses on helping to democratize AI and its performance across global populations. While announcing this, the minister emphasized India's approach across the five layers of the AI stack: applications, models, compute, talent and energy. This provides a lens through which to view the various policy and other related initiatives.

As expected, media coverage has discussed the effectiveness of such voluntary initiatives, given there are no supporting binding instruments or accountability architectures. We must wait and see how things evolve.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare also announced two important policy initiatives. Titled the Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare for India and Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI, these initiatives are aimed to strengthen AI in India's digital health ecosystem.

Once more, we see that the acronyms, SAHI and BODH, seem to have been carefully chosen. "Sahi" means accurate in Hindi and "Bodh" is a Sanskrit derived word that means enlightenment. 

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda referred to the SAHI as "a governance framework, policy compass, and national roadmap for the responsible use of AI in healthcare" and BODH as "a structured mechanism for testing and validating AI solutions before deployment at scale."

In other non-AI Summit news, India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act is slowly beginning to percolate into serious business conversations, beyond discussions around nuances of the law and penalties. This is evident in the stakeholders being roped in and the attention that it is receiving in boardrooms, corroborated as well by the chatter at IAPP KnowledgeNet meetings during the IAPP leadership team's visit.

Interestingly, while the law has yet to come into effect, citizens don't seem to be waiting around. There was controversy in the southern state of Kerala recently when the Kerala High Court flagged an intrusion of privacy of government employees. The Chief Minister's Office sent WhatsApp and email messages on the government's achievements ahead of state elections and two employees filed a petition alleging their mobile phone numbers and emails were illegally accessed.  

I can only imagine how things will be come May 2027 when the DPDPA takes effect.

Meanwhile, the relatively small community of privacy professionals is set to see pressures increase. ISACA's State of Privacy 2026 survey found 55% of privacy professionals in India say their roles are more stressful today than they were five years ago. Shrinking teams, compliance complexity and rapid AI adoption are compounding the pressure, according to the survey.

Fun and exciting times ahead, indeed.

Shivangi Nadkarni is senior corporate vice president, digital trust at Persistent Systems Ltd.