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The year 2026 will mark a major milestone for India and France as both nations come together to celebrate the "Year of India-France Innovation," providing opportunities for startups and innovators from both countries to collaborate, stated Anne Bouverot, France's Special Envoy for Artificial Intelligence, in an exclusive conversation with ANI.
"I think also the reason I'm very happy for this visit and for our partnership between France and India is that actually in 2026 it will be the year of French-Indian innovation, and that's a great opportunity to get our ecosystems, our startups to work together," said Bouverot. She highlighted that both countries share a common vision for developing artificial intelligence (AI) that reflects their cultural diversity and values. "In AI, we have of course the innovation ecosystem. We also have to think that AI chatbots, they're like concentrated packs of culture or expressions of culture," she explained. Elaborating further, Bouverot said that the design of AI systems often reflects cultural assumptions. "You can think about the very few languages in which the chatbots are available. You can think if you ask an image about a wedding, it will give you an image of a woman in white and a man in a black suit. And that's true in some cultures, but that's not true in all cultures," she noted. Bouverot also mentioned her role in organizing the AI Action Summit last February in France for President Emmanuel Macron. During that event, it was announced that India will host the AI Impact Summit in February next year. "So I'm here to help support this partnership between our two countries in doing that," she added. The India-AI Impact Summit 2026, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the France AI Action Summit this year, is scheduled to take place from February 19 to February 20 in the national capital and will be the first-ever global AI summit hosted in the Global South. According to her, France and India are well-aligned in their vision that AI should be useful for people, users, and citizens. "Therefore, I'm very interested in any use cases in agriculture, in commerce, in education, and in healthcare," she said, expressing delight at witnessing real-world applications of AI during her visit to India. During her visit to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bouverot observed the ongoing partnership with Wadhwani AI and noted significant use cases such as the early diagnosis of tuberculosis and potential blindness linked to diabetes. Speaking on the balance between innovation and regulation, Bouverot emphasized that France is trying to find the right balance between encouraging innovation and protecting citizens' rights "But equally, it's very important to innovate and to have your own startups and your own companies innovate in the field of AI. And so this is the same spirit that we see in India and that we hope to help grow -- this balance between innovation on the one hand, which is very important, and regulation also to protect our citizens, to protect children, to protect workers," she concluded. (ANI)
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