UNDP's AI Director Keyzom Ngodup Massally lauded India's diverse landscape as a fertile ground for AI innovation ahead of the 2026 AI Impact Summit. She praised India's people-centric approach and its digital public infrastructure.
With India set to host the AI Impact Summit in 2026, UNDP's AI Director, Keyzom Ngodup Massally, highlighted India's diverse landscape as a fertile ground for testing, piloting, and scaling AI solutions.
In an interview with ANI during the 2025 Global Technology Summit's Innovation Dialogue in the national capital, Keyzom Ngodup Massally, Director, AI Hub & Head of Digital & AI Programmes, UNDP, highlighted how India can bring forth novel solutions for the world. "This is the first global summit in the Global South. So already it's going to be very different. There's a lot of focus on innovation, adoption, solving challenges people and our planet face, and leveraging AI. So this is how we're seeing this AI Summit being different in India."
India: A Fertile Ground for People-Centric AI
Massally highlighted India's unique position to lead in AI innovation, thanks to its diverse linguistic, cultural, and geographical landscape. Appreciating the novel Indian initiatives which the world can adopt at large when it comes to digital public infrastructure and AI, she said, "What's amazing about India is because of its diversity- linguistic diversity, cultural diversity, geographical diversity, it's such a fertile ground to test, pilot, scale."
Massally emphasised that India's focus on digital public infrastructure, such as UPI and Bhashani, offers valuable lessons for the world on scaling AI solutions safely and maximising impact. She emphasised that India's approach focuses on using technology to serve people, rather than just adopting technology for its own sake. This people-centric approach is what makes India's initiatives noteworthy and worthy of global adoption. Many lessons are emerging from India on how to scale safely and maximise impact. Whether we are talking about Bhashani and the AI for Bharat, which makes Indic language available as part of AI solutions, or if we're talking about UPI and other digital public infrastructure and how AI can power that further to bring services closer to people- these are the many ways in which India offers its lessons. But at the core, it is not about technology. It is about how to make technology work in service for people. And that is what India brings to the world, to human development, which for me at UNDP is a very important goal, because ultimately, it is people and the choices that we will make as people that will shape the future of this technology."
Evolving AI Governance and Policy
On being asked how she envisions the summit influencing global AI policy, ethics and governance, Massally told ANI, "India is bringing to focus that regulations or policies is not a one-time thing, but it must constantly evolve to be in service of solving people's challenges, to help those solutions, those use cases that improve a farmer's life, a woman's life, to scale- and this is where we see the governance or the conversations around governance of AI, governance of data, becoming highly contextual within jurisdictions, and a discussion that must be had as a collective in countries with the civil society organizations, with the various government departments, with the communities and with the private sector."
Indo-Italian Collaboration and G7 Partnership
Massally, who is also the Director for G7 AI Hub for Sustainable Development, told ANI, "We know that there's such a special relationship between Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni of Italy. So, naturally, there's a lot of excitement for us, as the AI Hub was created during Italy's G7 Presidency. There's a lot of convergence between Italy and India's priorities, particularly the focus on the private sector and economic growth".
She highlighted that India has been a valuable partner at the G7 and, along with Italy, the two nations are working on AI across several fronts. "India is such a valuable partner to many of the G7 countries, having been a guest in the G7 proceedings for many years, including the one that the Prime Minister of Italy hosted with Prime Minister Modi". Noting that Italy and India have prioritised local, homegrown innovations, Massally said the two countries are working in Africa to "network with the innovators that are building Africa's AI infrastructure, looking at critical minerals and industrial value chains."
The Global Technology Summit brought together industry experts, policymakers, scientists, and other stakeholders from all over the world. As an official pre-summit event for the upcoming AI Impact Summit, which India will host in 2026, it brought about meaningful conversations on technology, AI, and geopolitics. (ANI)
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