External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told the UN General Assembly on 27 September 2026 that every nation has the right to develop its own artificial intelligence models, pushing back against the growing concentration of AI power in the hands of a few governments and corporations. Speaking during the General Debate in New York, Jaishankar described AI as capable of becoming 'a transformational driver' of human empowerment and economic prosperity — but warned that its misuse was already sharpening bias and eroding mutual respect.

India's Position on AI Sovereignty

Jaishankar argued that countries must remain free to build AI systems aligned with their own national priorities, framing this as a question of digital self-determination. His remarks positioned India as a voice for the developing world in a debate that cuts to the heart of 21st-century geopolitics: who writes the rules of transformative technology, and who benefits from it. This comes amid India's own push to scale domestic AI capabilities through government-backed initiatives, lending particular weight to New Delhi's stance on the world stage.

Global South Raises Alarm Over Digital Colonialism

Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Haji Hasan put the sharpest edge on the debate, warning that nations in the Global South risked being reduced to passive hosts of digital infrastructure while core decisions remained elsewhere. 'The Global South cannot simply become a destination for data centres while decisions about AI are made elsewhere,' Hasan said. Developing countries must become 'partners in innovation, not merely customers and markets,' he added. Hasan also flagged the environmental and resource costs of data centres — water, energy, and land — arguing these burdens should not be borne by poorer nations while the primary economic gains flow to richer ones.

Western Powers Acknowledge Concentration Risk

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul raised a structurally similar concern, noting that most global AI patents were held by companies in only two major countries. 'Whenever power becomes global, responsibility must become global, too,' he said. Wadephul called for internationally agreed safety requirements for the most capable AI models, warning that the technology was advancing faster than multilateral institutions could respond. 'AI is not waiting for our institutions to catch up. Our institutions have to catch up with reality,' he said — a stark acknowledgement from a major Western economy that the regulatory gap is widening.

Broader Voices at the UN Debate

Belize Prime Minister John Briceño warned that poorly governed AI could deepen inequality, expose critical systems, displace workers, and leave developing nations dependent on 'technologies and rules designed elsewhere.' He noted that national legislation alone was insufficient for a technology that crosses every border. Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan called AI 'the most urgent frontier,' urging investment in science, infrastructure, and skills alongside safeguards to keep people in control. Laos stressed that AI must build local technical capacity and respect national development priorities, while Saudi Arabia highlighted its work to establish an international network of AI capacity-building centres and an AI research and ethics centre in Riyadh.

Where Global AI Governance Stands

The UN adopted the Global Digital Compact in 2024 as a framework for international cooperation on AI, aimed at closing digital divides and promoting safe, human-centred technology. Governments are still negotiating how those broad principles should be translated into enforceable rules — a gap that the interventions at this year's General Debate underscored. Notably, the convergence of voices from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe on concentration risk signals that AI governance is becoming one of the defining multilateral fault lines of the decade. How quickly the UN system can move from compact to concrete regulation will shape whether developing countries have a meaningful seat at the table.