In February 2026, the India AI Impact Summit (Summit) will be held in New Delhi, hosted by the Government of India. Building on the Government of India’s emphasis on using the Summit to highlight the importance of inclusive governance and digital equity for the Global South, the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) at the National Law University Delhi and the Global Network Initiative (GNI) are excited to launch the project Multistakeholder Approaches to Participation in AI governance (MAP-AI). As part of this project we will be fostering multistakeholder conversations and supporting underrepresented voices in the lead-up to and during the Summit to demonstrate how more inclusive participation can improve AI governance.
AI Summits and the Opportunities for Multistakeholderism
The India AI Impact Summit is the latest in a series of high-profile, global AI Summits hosted by various governments. Notably, it is the first to be held in the Global South.
These summits and the declarations and initiatives they have launched have helped advance discussions around AI safety, access, and governance. Yet, even as these government-led Summits and other multilateral efforts on AI governance and safety continue to evolve, it has become clearer that opportunities remain to enhance the meaningful inclusion of multistakeholder perspectives and expertise, especially those from the Global South. Without concerted effort and support, some of the most critical international AI policy forums, processes, and outcomes will continue to lack the essential expertise needed to identify, understand, and mitigate the greatest risks and harness the most significant opportunities of AI.
CCG and GNI’s Activities to Advance Multistakeholderism and Global South Perspectives at the India AI Impact Summit
To inform the Summit, CCG and GNI have been convening a range of pre-Summit multistakeholder conversations, with an emphasis on including Global South civil society, academic, and researcher perspectives.
This has included:
We look forward to hosting and participating in additional multistakeholder conversations in the run-up to the Summit. Our goal is for these convenings to raise awareness of and interest in participating in the Summit, as well as to generate insights to feed into and inform the programme and outcomes of the main Summit. GNI and CCG will be synthesizing the lessons and inputs from these discussions.
In parallel, we are creating opportunities to surface these inputs at, support broader participation in, and model multistakeholder engagement alongside the Summit. During the week of the Summit, we are organizing a forum for learning for academics, think tanks, civil society and researchers on 16 February. This will be followed by a multistakeholder event on 17 February featuring civil society, academic, and researcher-led roundtables, workshops, and panels, with high-level participation from company, civil society, academic, foundation, government, and international organization leaders. We will foster in-depth discussions among these diverse participants on topics related to key Summit themes including global AI governance, safe and trusted AI, enabling AI ecosystems, and inclusion & access as well as associated risks, harms, mitigations, and other considerations of AI technologies that might otherwise not be understood or present in the discussions at the Summit as well as other AI governance processes. We are also seeking opportunities to inform the formal Summit and its outputs.
In addition, we will collect and publish lessons learned and insights gathered for future international AI governance efforts.
We hope that the India AI Impact Summit will be an opportunity to establish best practices for multistakeholder participation, bridge silos between disparate governance processes and efforts, and highlight Global South leadership in AI governance.
In planning our activities, CCG and GNI look forward to continuing to consult our partners and members to learn more about key issues that can be addressed at the Summit, where the gaps are, and how multistakeholderism can be further embedded into AI governance processes. If you will be at the Summit and are interested in connecting, please write to us at [email protected] and [email protected].
About CCG
The Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) at the National Law University Delhi (NLUD) is a leading research centre with over a decade of experience in information technology law and policy. CCG studies technology’s impact on our society and engages with questions of individual and societal harms as well as addressing inequality. To achieve this vision, CCG adopts a three-pronged approach: (1) academic and policy research, (2) policy inputs domestically and internationally, and (3) capacity building of diverse stakeholders. Additionally, CCG seeks to highlight the Indian and Global South perspective at Global forums to enable holistic development of technology policy.
About GNI
The Global Network Initiative (GNI) is the leading multistakeholder forum for accountability, shared learning, and collective advocacy on government and company policies and practices at the intersection of technology and human rights. We are a membership organization with members on every populated Continent, including technology companies, civil society organizations, academic institutions, and investors. Collectively, we set a global standard for responsible company decision-making to promote and advance freedom of expression and privacy rights across the technology ecosystem.