Global AI commons: India’s most ambitious tech diplomacy pitch yet

Every AI summit promises safety, guardrails, and responsible innovation. But, according to reports, the upcoming India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi is promising something that hasn’t been proposed earlier – shared ownership in the era of AI.

At the centre of that pitch is a proposal now being described as a “global AI commons” – an international framework where datasets, models, tools and compute infrastructure are treated less like corporate assets and more like shared public goods. 

According to a recent Financial Times report, India will push for global consensus around this idea at the summit, positioning it as a way to democratise access to AI for the Global South. If it sounds idealistic, it is. If it sounds necessary, it may be even more so.

From AI superpowers to AI public infrastructure

If you think about it and look around, the global AI economy today resembles a bit of an exclusive club. Where foundation models are largely built by a handful of companies in the US and China, trained on English-heavy datasets, and optimised for markets that can afford expensive compute infrastructure and subscriptions.

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This is where India’s proposed global AI commons attempts to invert that hierarchy.

Instead of each country building isolated sovereign AI stacks, the commons envisions a shared repository of resources. This will include multilingual datasets, open models, use-case libraries, and compute pools designed specifically for emerging economies. 

Various reports describe the concept as a way to create interoperable AI tools across sectors like education, agriculture and healthcare, ensuring that applications can be reused and adapted globally rather than reinvented locally. Think of it as open-source software – but for national-scale AI infrastructure.

Why India is leading the push

India’s pitch for a global AI commons is not accidental. It is an extension of its digital public infrastructure push of the last decade or so. Examples like Aadhaar, UPI, and India Stack have proven that open, interoperable platforms can scale across populations and even borders.

Also read: India AI Impact Summit: 5 major announcements you shouldn’t miss

Now New Delhi wants to replicate that model for AI-led infrastructure. By pooling datasets – especially multilingual and voice-first data from countries like India – participating nations could build AI systems that work for billions who don’t interact primarily in English or text.

India is also expected to propose a funding facility to support these shared resources, allowing countries to contribute data, compute or use-case development rather than building everything independently. 

The aim is simply to allow countries to build affordable, locally relevant AI that can be deployed in public services, education and rural economies across the Global South.

This proposed global AI commons concept doesn’t reject regulation or responsible AI – which has been the focus of recent global AI summits from Bletchley Park to Paris. Instead, it emphasises implementation: how AI can be deployed at scale for social and developmental outcomes. 

It also acknowledges a simple reality – most developing nations cannot afford to build frontier AI models or massive compute clusters on their own. A shared global infrastructure may be the only viable path.

If this proposal gains traction, the upcoming India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi could mark a subtle shift in the global AI conversation. From the ones who lead the AI race to who gets to use AI at all.

Also read: India AI Impact Summit 2026: Why India’s global south AI Summit changes everything