India's 'Data for Development' takes centre stage at AI Summit in Paris

As artificial intelligence continues to redefine global economies, India is taking a bold step in shaping the future of AI policy and governance.

At the AI Action Summit Paris 2025, AI4India and the Center for Policy Research and Governance (CPRG) will co-host a pivotal panel discussion, "Data for Development: Building AI in the Global South," bringing together leading experts and policymakers to discuss the transformative role of AI in emerging economies.

As a curtain raiser to the event, AI4India and CPRG have unveiled the speaker lineup at the event.

As the only non-governmental organizations from India to host an official side event at the summit, AI4India and CPRG will convene some of the world's foremost AI and policy experts.

The session will feature Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India; Shashi Shekhar Vempati and Alok Agrawal, Co-Founders of AI4India; and Ramanand, Director, CPRG, an authority on AI governance and ethical AI adoption who has been instrumental in shaping India's AI and digital policies. Also joining the panel will be Sean Dougherty, Senior Advisor at OECD, who has played a key role in advising global AI governance frameworks and Gunjan Bhardwaj (Co-Founder & CEO, Partex NV) a pioneer in AI-driven decision-making, who is revolutionizing healthcare and industry transformation through data-centric AI innovations, the statement said.

Elaborating on themes of the event, Ramananad of CPRG said that the "discussion will centre around three critical themes- data sovereignty and the Global South, exploring who controls data and how emerging economies can ensure equitable AI development; reimagining economics, analyzing AI's impact on global trade and economic resilience; and shaping the workforce of tomorrow, addressing the transformation of labour markets in an AI-driven era".

AI4India co-founder Alok Agrawal highlighted the depth to the conversation that will be brought by eminent speakers such as Joel Ruet from CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, CRG-i3, a leading researcher on AI's economic transformation; Ravi Kaushik, Executive Director at the Center for Indo-European Cooperation, an expert on AI collaborations between India and Europe; and Sriram Subramanian, Founder of CloudDon, known for his work in AI-led innovation and cloud computing. The session would move forward alongside Chetan Aggarwal, Visiting Fellow at CPRG, and Parikshit Dhume, an AI innovation expert, all of whom have been instrumental in driving AI policy and innovation in India, the statement said.

In a curtain raiser podcast ahead of the Paris AI Action Summit, AI4India.Org co-founder Shashi Shekhar Vempati in conversation with noted Indian Journalist and Managing Editor of Tak Channels, Milind Khandekar dwelt on the significance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi co-chairing the Summit with French President Emmanuel Macron. Elaborating further on the Data for Development theme during the podcast, Vempati highlighted the AI4India.Org initiative on "Data Daan" emerging as a movement towards creating open and publicly accessible dataset for development of AI Models in India.

By drawing a diversity of speakers from India and around the world, the AI4India.Org and CPRG official side event in Paris, will set the stage for serious deliberations on not only coordinating policy actions between nations but also on bridging the technology gap across nations to realize the goal of AI for universal global good.