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NEW DELHI – The biggest AI conference in India this week looked, on the surface, like a familiar spectacle: world leaders and technology executives meeting in New Delhi, investment numbers dominating the headlines, and joint statements carefully written. It was the world’s largest AI conference to date, and the first to be hosted in the Global South.
I was on the ground during closed-door conferences, bilateral events, and official signings. While most of the coverage focused on press releases and small deal announcements, something more important was happening.
FILE-US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands before their meeting at Hyderabad House, February 25, 2020, in New Delhi, India. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file) (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file/AP Newsroom)
In a few days, the United States quietly put together the full playbook of the Global South—how developing economies use artificial intelligence, how that adoption is financed, how it is protected. The US has paired the deployment of AI with supply chain security and focused on India, signaling a shift in how it intends to produce technology leadership at a time when domestic politics are intruding. This program has two parts.
The first is the supply chain and key resources side with Pax Silica. Under the US Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg, the US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios all appeared in New Delhi to sign the agreement to welcome India to Pax Silica. This declaration formalizes cooperation in all important minerals, semiconductor production, energy, and data center infrastructure, which clearly includes economic stability and national security.
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Helberg positioned the effort as a response to what he called “weapons dependency,” arguing that “economic security is national security” and that sovereignty in the modern age comes from the ability to build—”from minerals deep in the earth to silicon wafers to the intelligence that powers AI systems.” Ambassador Gor followed by clearly stating that India’s participation is “not symbolic” but “strategic and important,” linking the move directly to broader US-India trade, technology, and defense ties. The language was unusually direct.
The second arm came a little later, in a press conference that received relatively little attention. Director Kratsios outlined a new AI deployment stack, which equates to a new phase of US AI policy: a concerted effort to export the American AI ecosystem at scale, supported by funding, standards setting, and deployment assistance. “We want to share a lot of American technology with the rest of the world,” he said, stressing that leadership in AI will not only be determined by who innovates, but whose programs are widely accepted to be wrong.
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That framework helps explain why this was launched in New Delhi and not in Washington. India has designed a conference on adoption instead of adoption, with leaders from the Global South, frontier AI companies, and international lenders in attendance. Indian officials have emphasized execution limits and sovereignty over price consensus. IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw focused on the semiconductor talent shortage, noting that the global industry will need “nearly a million more skilled professionals” and that India is addressing this with national programs involving hundreds of universities, as well as free access to advanced chip design tools from firms such as Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens.
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All the American officials present highlighted India’s role as critical. Many emerging economies connect to one link of the technology value chain: minerals, low-cost integration, or consumption. India works abroad in the stacks. US officials have repeatedly emphasized that India brings engineering talent, active participation in advanced chip design, a growing domestic AI product program, deployment capabilities at the population level and the ability to absorb large infrastructure investments in data centers and power. That makes India not just a market, but a place of stability—both the diffusion of AI and the diversification of supply chains that have become more concentrated.
The conference highlighted a problem in the Global South that Washington often avoids addressing directly. Artificial intelligence is no longer an independent field. It is the infrastructure layer of the future economy. Infrastructure requires secure inputs, power, standards, skilled workers, and ongoing funding. Countries that can use AI on a large scale will have little impact on how they are governed. They will inherit systems designed elsewhere. Regulation without participation does not provide sovereignty or stability.
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The US response expressed in New Delhi shows recognition of that fact. America’s ecosystem is set as a foundation for others to build on, rather than a closed platform for them to rent. The financing instruments of many agencies—including the US Development Finance Corporation and the Export-Import Bank—are aligned with lower acquisition thresholds. Partner country firms are integrated and cross-sold into the system rather than being excluded from it. Standards, especially for next-generation AI agents, are being shaped early on, with Kratsios noting that collaboration will determine whether AI scales smoothly or in chunks.
Pax Silica and AI export system – these two tracks are designed to go together, creating a loop between strength and durability.
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It was clear from the more than $250 billion in AI deals announced in New Delhi that the markets seem to see a way to go. Microsoft has committed to investing an estimated $50 billion in AI infrastructure across the Global South by the end of the decade. OpenAI and AMD announced a partnership with India’s Tata Group tied to AI infrastructure and deployment. Blackstone participated in the $600 million raising of Indian AI infrastructure company Neysa, while Nvidia is expanding its business partnerships across India. Indian conglomerates Reliance and Adani have separately revealed large data center investments measuring several gigawatts of capacity.
As domestic politics in the United States worsens ahead of the midterms, the White House is apparently moving to push a similar agenda abroad—not dependent on legislative cycles or major battles at home. The Global South, where AI adoption will determine growth paths and political relevance for decades, is now central to that effort. The United States no longer relies solely on innovation to sustain technological leadership. Build a recovery architecture, secure its strategic foundations, and expand both outwards at a time when the US is moving inwardly.
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