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Senior United Nations leaders, including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, will participate in the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi. The Summit, the first global AI gathering of its scale to be convened in the Global South, will take place from February 16 to 20.
The Summit is organised by India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. It will bring together governments, international organisations, industry, academia, and civil society to advance the responsible development and deployment of artificial intelligence in support of sustainable development. The UN system will convene more than 30 side events during the Summit, addressing areas including agriculture and food security, gender equality, health systems, digital public infrastructure, disaster risk reduction and children's safety. "We need shared understandings to build effective guardrails, unlock innovation for the common good, and foster cooperation," Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently said ahead of his visit to India. The Secretary-General will be joined by Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Amandeep Singh Gill, Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies; Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF); Gilbert F. Houngbo, Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO); Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); Kamal Kishore, Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. Additionally, senior representatives from UNDP, UN Women, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNFPA, FAO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) will also participate. Just yesterday, the UN General Assembly appointed 40 members, recommended by the Secretary-General, to the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence. The Panel, the first global scientific body of its kind, will bring together leading experts to assess how AI is transforming societies and economies worldwide. The members were selected from more than 2,600 candidates and will serve in their personal capacity. The Panel will issue an annual report containing evidence-based scientific assessments that synthesise and analyse existing research on AI's opportunities, risks and impacts, including in support of the new Global Dialogue on AI Governance. Its members include Indian expert Balaraman Ravindran of IIT Madras. (ANI)
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