Permanent Mission of India
New York
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Briefing on "Towards a Network for Inclusive AI Capacity Development"

Statement by Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, Permanent Representative
18 December 2025

Excellencies, My dear friend, USG Amandeep, distinguished Delegates,

1. At the outset I warmly welcome all of you to today's briefing on a network for inclusive AI capacity development. I believe your presence here today is very important. It reflects our shared commitment for bringing about and building an inclusive, sustainable, trustworthy, and resilient AI, which is central to our economic resilience, our development progress, and long-term global development. I want to especially thank the Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies and Amandeep for his support in convening this briefing and for his work on making possible a network for inclusive AI capacity development.

2. The Secretary General in his report on innovative voluntary financing options for AI capacity building invited us member states to consider creating centers for exchange and cooperation to offer them as part of a UN-supported network. You just heard that in response to this we, through the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, has offered its participation in the network. IIT Madras is one of our premier institutes of technology which has a robust global presence, especially in Africa. They have an international campus in Zanzibar in Tanzania and it reflects our growing engagement in this field in Africa.

3. Last November, of course, a month ago, IIT Madras hosted this inaugural workshop. Many of your representatives were present in that workshop. You have indicated an interest to be part of this network. Your representatives deliberated on the foundational principles, some of the governing arrangements, and an operational framework on how we can bring this about. As a result of these deliberations, we now have an outline of a draft charter. I expect our colleague Professor Ravindran of IIT Madras to join us later to brief us virtually on this matter. Some of the representatives from participating countries will also join us in today's briefing.

4. Let me be clear that the Global Digital Compact, which our leaders approved and we negotiated as part of the Pact for the Future last year, has AI capacity building at its heart to ensure that no country and none of our citizens are left behind in this technological revolution. The Secretary General's report on innovative voluntary financing provides for a strong framework for international cooperation. We believe there can be no better framework multilaterally than the United Nations. If we can bring compute, data, skills, and safety to each of our countries, we can close the AI divide so that no one is left behind.

5. Our commitment is exemplified through the India AI mission. My government is strongly committed to this by enabling private sector cooperation and international cooperation. We are building a comprehensive national AI ecosystem in India, both in terms of GPUs, increasing AI compute capacity, and making sure that it is available to all sectors and to all people. We host nearly 300 open source models, with more coming online, and over 2,000 datasets. Skilling and capacity building is a key element of this. We are looking to skill about 10 million people annually across a range, starting from the lowest level of data annotation to advanced research and PhD level training.

6. Skilling is also important because we have to create the awareness and including those involved in governance is a key element in this. Civil servants and those who work for government at various levels have to have the capacity development that is required for them to not only devise policy but to enable actual implementation in AI. In India, through our civil service training platform called IGOT, we have seen that AI training and AI skilling courses are the most popular in recent times, and our online platform has enabled us to reach out to civil servants across the length and breadth of India.

7. We also have a very robust platform for international cooperation, and that is India's ITEC program, one of the oldest institutionalized arrangements for international capacity building. Nearly 200,000 officials from friends and partners, mainly from the Global South, including over 160 countries, have benefited under the ITEC program in India. We are now targeting 10,000 fully funded in-person training programs across 400 courses at 100 preeminent institutions in India, and many of these institutions are focused on AI courses. India ranks fourth globally in the AI Stanford index, which indicates our strength in R&D.

8. Looking ahead, friends, we will be hosting the AI Impact Summit in Delhi in February. We have just had, two days back, a curtain raiser for the AI Impact Summit. The theme of the summit would be focused on people, progress, and the planet. One of the largest summits in this field, we expect over 200,000 participants in the lead-up to it, and over 50,000 attending in person. Human capital development will be a core focus area of the AI Impact Summit. We envisage using this platform to present a draft charter for the UN-supported network of centers of excellence. We also expected to announce some resource commitments, and hopefully convene a ministerial roundtable on AI capacity building at the AI Impact Summit in February 2026 in New Delhi.

9. Friends, the AI revolution, of course, presents both an opportunity and a responsibility. The promise cannot be realized unless capacity building is fully realized. This can only be done through partnership, in a multilateral framework, through international cooperation, by extending a helping hand to each other. This is not dependency, but friendship and empowerment and partnership. We stand ready to work with all of you, with all member states and partners across the global south and beyond. It is up to us to translate the vision of the global digital compact into tangible action.

10. The UN Secretariat by itself would not be able to do it. We as member states have to take the lead, to participate, to collaborate, and to bring international cooperation to fruition. May I again request all participating centers to extend every possible help and assistance to bring this into reality. I request friends and Member States to nominate additional centers to participate. We are looking at a follow-up workshop, hopefully in January, next month, after the winter break, perhaps in Senegal.

We look forward to hearing more details of that during the course of today's briefing. I would request all of you to actively encourage your headquarters, your colleagues in your capitals to be part of it, to come forward and to extend more participating centers so that this network becomes a very, very strong network and we can take everybody along in this endeavor.

Thank you very much.