The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University & NXT Fellow 2026
The AI Impact Summit 2026 has announced India’s arrival on the global AI stage. This analysis highlights how India can build a comparative advantage in AI and leverage it diplomatically to create a strategic advantage, undergirding Indian AI leadership on its own terms.
“The light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us,” wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge, perhaps, did not recognize how misleading this vivid analogy is; if a lantern illuminates the waves of the past, can it not be used to infer the nature of the waves ahead? That is what the NXT Fellowship has taught me about Bharat’s diplomacy: marrying the lessons of the past with the imperatives of the present.
India’s stewardship of the 2026 AI Impact Summit shows how AI diplomacy is about much more than the ‘race’ between the U.S. and China. Convening over 35,000 delegates from more than 100 countries, 40+ CEOs, international organizations, and civil society, followed by a joint declaration signed by 88 nations, shows that India is preparing to vie for AI leadership on its own terms.
What is the path to using this momentum on the international stage? The answer lies in a three-pronged blueprint for India’s AI diplomacy:
1. Strategic Partnerships
Strategic autonomy is contingent on how India can create strategic interdependence. Joining Pax Silica reaffirmed India’s importance to the U.S. AI ecosystem. The swathe of Indian talent combined with its vibrant startup ecosystem can make India a ‘digital swing state,’ forging partnerships with other non-U.S., non-China countries like France, Japan, and Germany to ensure a hedge against cloud monopolies. As AI becomes the currency of comprehensive national power, the objective of AI diplomacy must be ensuring that the world cannot do without India.
2. Indispensability and Digital Infrastructure
Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), as a foundational, crosscutting technology, has become a global example of effective ‘digital plumbing.’ Innovations like Bhashini in linguistics, the Kisan e-Mitra chatbot for agriculture, and Health Sentinel for disease surveillance are stellar examples of how India has slowly but surely put people at the heart of its AI diplomacy.
India is not the U.S. or China, and that is its strength. If it plays its cards right, it can be sought after by both. Before becoming the proverbial Ferrari, India’s strength lies in fixing the potholes on the road. India is already ranked third in AI competitiveness by Stanford University’s 2025 Global AI Vibrancy Tool. The path forward lies in combining this expertise in innovative applications with Bharat’s dexterity in solving the practical problems of the Global South.
3. Comparative Advantage
India must ensure realistic capability assessment and calibrated investment in order to organize priorities with limited resources. As one of the world’s largest producers of data, India uniquely needs high-quality, well-annotated datasets, particularly for regional languages. The global rush to build over-commoditized, expensive frontier models must not come at the cost of catching up in these foundational areas. It is these distinct datasets that can actually complement model development in the long run and yield critical diplomatic leverage in the short-to-medium run.
An Indian foreign policy designed to take AI leadership on its own terms will be the lantern lit on the stern of humanity’s boat, driven by a civilizational power tasked with the nimble, proactive, and resilient AI diplomacy of the future.