Rewriting the AI Order: India’s StrategicTurn Toward Sovereign Governance

“Rome wasn’t built in a day but they were laying bricks every hour.”

In the 21st century, power is no longer measured only in missiles or markets, but in algorithms. Artificial intelligence has emerged as the new axis of global influence, reshaping diplomacy, defence, and development. For years, the race appeared confined to Washington and Beijing. But with the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, India signalled its ambition to enter this contest, not merely as a participant, but as a rule shaper because the countries that shape AI standards today will influence global governance for decades to come.

Through the AI Impact Summit 2026, India has articulated a vision of “sovereign AI” that seeks to balance innovation with autonomy.

A bipolar order in international politics is defined by two dominant centres of power that shape rules, institutions, and standards while other states largely respond. In artificial intelligence, this structure is increasingly evident in the duopoly of the United States and China. While much of the world consumes AI technologies, the architecture of innovation, infrastructure, and governance remains concentrated in these two poles.

The American model is anchored in corporate primacy. Firms such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and NVIDIA drive frontier development, supported by deep capitalistic markets and strategic state backing. Although innovation is market led, USA retains structural leverage through control over advanced semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, and export controls. Even open-source models depend on hardware ecosystems largely shaped by American firms.

Artificial intelligence, in this framework, is both a commercial engine and a national security asset. Now, China’s model reflects state directed technological sovereignty. AI is embedded in national planning and closely integrated with security, industrial policy, and governance. Strong data localization rules, coordinated public private development integration align technological advancement with strategic objectives. At home, AI supports centralized governance but when it comes to abroad, digital infrastructure exports extend China’s technological standards to parts of the Global South.

The result is a fragmented governance landscape. Competing standards, supply chain weaponization, and divergent regulatory philosophies have produced parallel tracks in multilateral forums such as the United Nations and the G20. Rather than a unified global framework, the world faces a structurally divided AI order.

It is within this polarized environment that the prospect of a third pole gains strategic significance.

India’s convening of the 2026 AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, culminating in the New Delhi Declaration endorsed by 88 signatories, including the United States, China, Russia, and the European Union signals a calculated attempt to reposition itself within global AI governance. By shifting the focus from West driven debates to development, inclusion, and sustainability, India framed AI as an instrument of equitable growth, particularly for the Global South region. Organized around seven thematic “Chakras” emphasizing access, empowerment, and resilience, the summit cast India as a nonaligned convening power bridging the US and China divide.

The scale of participation speaks for itself as 20 heads of state and hundreds of AI leaders underscored joined and shook hands together, which signalled the plurality with its diplomatic ambition. Sectoral commitments in healthcare, agriculture, and climate linked AI governance to development priorities central to emerging economies. In contrast to American corporate dominance and Chinese state directed control, India advanced a narrative of “AI for All,” seeking to expand its normative influence; however, the declaration’s non-binding character limits its immediate regulatory weight.

Sovereign AI is framed not only as economic policy but as an element of national security and autonomy. India has sought to position itself as a bridge power in global AI governance situated between Western innovation driven ecosystems and the development imperatives of the Global South. By convening the AI Impact Summit, New Delhi demonstrated diplomatic agility while advancing its normative ambitions in global AI governance. Its emphasis on equitable access, human-centred deployment, and sustainable development framed AI not merely as a frontier of technology but as an instrument of growth for the future. Through the IndiaAI Mission, sovereign compute capacity, multilingual foundational models, and data governance reforms were presented as the institutional backbone of this alternative approach.

Yet India’s bridge role remains structurally constrained. Continued dependence on high-end GPUs produced by NVIDIA and reliance on foreign cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure complicate claims of full technological autonomy. The New Delhi Declaration, while diplomatically significant, lacks binding force and enforcement mechanisms. India’s financial and compute capacity also remains modest relative to established AI powers.

India's pursuit of sovereign AI faces profound structural hurdles that undermine its bridge-power ambitions in the bipolar landscape. Hardware dependency persists as the core vulnerability. Despite scaling from 38,000 GPUs under the IndiaAI Mission to plans for 100,000+ by end-2026 via subsidized access and partnerships. India remains reliant on US-dominated NVIDIA supply chains and foreign hyperscalers (AWS, Azure), exposing it to export controls, pricing power, and "sovereignty-as-a-service" traps that erode true autonomy.

Talent competition exacerbates this as acute brain drain sees top AI engineers migrate to Silicon Valley for 7–8x salaries, depleting domestic depth in frontier research, model deployment, and while retention efforts lag amid modest R&D investment.

The implementation gap widens the divide and ambitious announcements (indigenous multilingual models, data sovereignty via Shakti Cloud) outpace execution, with poor data quality, fragmented research, and energy/water constraints for data centres hindering scalable deployment.

Global enforcement limits compound these. Due to the non-binding nature of the declaration, it offers diplomatic symbolism but lacks mechanisms to counter US rejection of binding governance or Chinese influence, leaving India's inclusive narrative vulnerable to fragmentation and power asymmetries.

At the multilateral level, the non-binding character of the New Delhi Declaration limits enforcement and standard-setting authority. In a context where major powers resist binding global frameworks, normative positioning alone may not suffice to counter entrenched asymmetries.

Critically, these interlocking challenges risk reducing sovereign AI to rhetorical nationalism, amplifying dependencies, stifling innovation, and confining India to a second tier role despite diplomatic gains, unless hardware diversification, talent repatriation, and enforceable multilateral follow through materialize swiftly.

Artificial intelligence is fast becoming a structural determinant of global power in the 21^st century. In this era of new global politics and the new world order taking the leap forward first and before everyone, will be the weapon. In a landscape shaped by American corporate dominance and Chinese state directed sovereignty, India’s intervention through the AI Impact Summit 2026 represents an attempt to move from technological dependence toward strategic agency. By advancing a framework rooted in sovereign capacity, inclusive development, and multilateral engagement, New Delhi has sought to articulate a third path in an increasingly polarized order.

Yet, aspiration and ambition alone do not alter hierarchy. Compute capacity, capital depth, institutional coherence, and sustained innovation will ultimately determine whether India can translate diplomatic visibility into durable rule making influence. The challenge is not merely to convene but to consolidate. Not only to declare principles, but to build the infrastructure that sustains them.

In future, India may help temper the fragmentation of global AI governance and expand the space for middle-power leadership. If not, the emerging order will remain defined by bipolar concentration.