India and Indonesia: Advancing an Inclusive AI Future for the Global South

Indonesia is playing an active role in bringing out tangible outcomes from the Summit, which can contribute to human-centric and ethical development of AI-based solutions. Over the past several weeks, Indonesia, along with the Netherlands, has contributed significantly to the Working Group on “AI for Economic Growth and Social Good”. Given the many similarities between India and Indonesia’s approaches to the development of human-centric AI ecosystem, Indonesia’s active participation, both in the processes that will shape the outcomes of the Summit, and at the Summit itself would benefit the Global South at large.

Indonesia’s National AI Strategy, Stranas KA, aligns with a human-centric, ethical AI vision. The long-term 2045 outlook emphasises talent development, and targeted deployment of AI in priority sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, and public services. It demonstrates a clear commitment to translating innovation into societal value. Indonesia’s experience in building ‘Sahabat’, a Large Language Model (LLM) ecosystem designed to operate in Bahasa Indonesia and other languages of Indonesia, is a pioneering effort and deserves to be shared for replication globally. Indonesia is also making important investments in GPU (graphics processing units) capacities and data centres. As per the Stanford AI Index Report 2025 and other sources, Indonesia is among the top 10 countries in growth of AI talent, boasting almost 200%  increase in AI talent concentration between 2016–2024. What is heart-warming is that Indonesia ranks among the most optimistic nations globally regarding AI, with 80% of the population viewing it as beneficial. Indonesia is recognized as the regional leader in SE Asia with regard to AI adoption.

India’s approach to AI is not confined to mere technical advancements and economic gains. It strives for tangible socio-economic impact, harnessing AI to enhance healthcare delivery, optimize agriculture, transform education and fortify climate resilience. The country’s ambition is empowering every citizen and promoting sustainable, inclusive development, especially for the Global South. The Stanford report places India at the 3rd position globally as far as AI competitiveness is concerned. The ranking highlights India’s rapid growth in the global AI landscape. The report measures AI growth and innovation from 2017 to 2024. This underscores India’s rapidly growing AI talent, strong research capabilities, vibrant start-up ecosystem, investment and economic impact, infrastructure and policy and governance.

Guided by the vision of “Making AI in India and Making AI Work for India”, India unveiled the India AI Mission in March 2024, with a budget outlay of about US$ 100 bn over five years. The mission marks a defining step towards making India a global leader in Artificial Intelligence. Since its launch, the mission has made strong progress in expanding the country’s computing infrastructure. From an initial target of 10,000 GPUs, India has now achieved 38,000 GPUs, providing affordable access to world-class AI resources. These GPUs are available for app developers at a subsidized rate of just less than a dollar per hour. One of the pillars of India AI Mission, “AIKosh”, develops large datasets for training AI models. It integrates data from government and non-government sources. The platform has over 5,500 datasets and 251 AI models and language technologies across 20 sectors. Through initiatives such as BHASHINI and BharatGen, India is democratizing access to multilingual AI tools

India and Indonesia have a shared approach to inclusive AI, grounded on a clear conviction, that technology must improve lives and expand opportunity. AI is not viewed as an end in itself, but as an enabler of development aligned with the vision of Viksit Bharat or Developed India 2047 and Indonesia Emas 2045. With our combined scale, youthful demographics, and growing innovation ecosystem, we are well-positioned to be regional leaders in responsible AI. Both our countries recognise that diversity and gender balance in AI ecosystems are not optional; they are strategic imperatives. Bias in data becomes bias in outcomes. Inclusion in design determines inclusion in impact.  It also makes a rationale for joint development of multilingual, locally developed AI models and language resources to reduce data bias and ensure contextual relevance for Global South societies.

It is noteworthy that Stranas KA and its AI ethics framework highlight trust, transparency, talent development, and accountability to integrate AI across key national priority sectors. As per IMF’s AI preparedness Index, a compelling case for AI-alliance between India and Indonesia emerges, as their specific scores reveal distinct institutional ‘superpowers’ that complement each other. India’s strengths lie in scale, STEM- skills, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI/ India Stack, R&D (high volume of AI patents), big-tech companies and major foreign investments in the sector, while Indonesia scores well in infrastructure readiness, regulation and ethics, and telecom connectivity.

By aligning regulatory policy frameworks, these two Asian giants can prevent Global South from becoming a ‘testing ground’ for other self-serving business models, thus setting an equitable and human-centric standard in the spirit of ‘AI for All’. Another potential area of co-operation that merits consideration could be collaborative investment and development of joint data-centres and processing capacities which could be useful for strategic reasons. These were at the heart of the discussions at the Pre-Summit event of the AI Impact Summit organised in Jakarta. The discussions not only focused on technology, but also about concrete steps to build an inclusive and sustainable AI ecosystem, ahead of the AI Impact Summit 2026.

For countries such as India and Indonesia, the questions surrounding AI are neither abstract nor distant. They are immediate, consequential, and deeply tied to our development pathways. With large and diverse populations, democratic governance systems, linguistic plurality, and development priorities still unfolding, the choices we make on AI will shape not only national outcomes but also global norms for how AI is governed, deployed, and experienced. As stated by Vice Minister Nezar Patria at the Pre-Summit event, the partnership between Indonesia and India would perhaps present significant opportunities for the development of artificial intelligence oriented toward the interests of the larger Global South and to shape its future discourse led by a human-centric approach.  Overall, the pre-summit event discussions underscored the need to move from strategy to implementation, with South–South cooperation emerging as a key pathway for inclusive and accountable AI. Only collective action can bridge the AI divide. India remains firmly committed to advancing inclusive, scalable AI and stands ready to partner and co-create solutions.