On March 18-19, the inaugural cohort of the ORF America U.S.-India AI Fellowship Program met in New Delhi for the Raisina Dialogue, co-hosted by the Observer Research Foundation, and the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India. This was the second in-person meeting of the AI Fellows to engage in discussions on opportunities and challenges of U.S.-India artificial intelligence (AI) cooperation.

During the conference, the fellows attended plenary sessions focused on emerging technology and geopolitics and discussed their initial findings of their fellowship research projects in breakout sessions. In addition, the U.S.-India AI Fellows participated in dedicated sessions to learn about current developments in India’s AI policy and implementation efforts. This included closed-door meetings with Mr. Abhishek Singh, CEO of the IndiaAI Mission and Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) as well as Dr. Avind Gupta, the head and co-founder of the Digital India Foundation.

To conclude their visit to New Delhi, the cohort joined the DPI Enclave the day following the Raisina Dialogue. In his opening remarks, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri emphasized how India has successfully developed and grown its Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and how DPI has also been adopted by a number of countries in the Global South, a process that is ongoing. The fellows also heard from the United Nations’ Amandeep Gill, Under-Secretary-General and Secretary-General's Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technology, on how DPI can be leveraged to accelerate the U.N Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as drive AI adoption, especially in developing digital economies.