As artificial intelligence is reaching its pinnacle, deeply embedded into the global economy, the world may no longer be divided merely by military power or economic influence. Instead, nations could increasingly be separated by access to computing power, semiconductor supply chains, data infrastructure and AI governance frameworks.

That emerging divide is now forcing countries across the Global South to confront an uncomfortable reality: while artificial intelligence promises to transform healthcare, education, agriculture, governance and industry, much of the technology remains concentrated in the hands of a few Western and Chinese corporations.

India appears determined to change that.

Over the past two years, New Delhi has quietly intensified efforts to position itself not merely as an AI consumer market, but as a bridge between advanced economies and developing nations seeking affordable, sovereign and inclusive technology systems.

The strategy is becoming increasingly visible through India’s digital diplomacy initiatives, AI governance proposals, semiconductor incentives, public digital infrastructure exports and South-South technology partnerships.

At the heart of this approach lies a larger geopolitical calculation. India understands that the next global power struggle may not revolve solely around oil, trade routes or manufacturing dominance, but around who controls the architecture of artificial intelligence.

Today, the global AI ecosystem remains heavily unequal. The United States dominates advanced AI models, cloud infrastructure and chip design. China controls major hardware supply chains, rare earth processing and state-backed AI deployment. Europe is attempting to shape regulation through its AI Act. Meanwhile, much of the developing world risks becoming dependent on foreign technology ecosystems with limited local control over data, language models or digital governance.

India Remains Vibrant

This is where India sees an opportunity.

Unlike many advanced economies, India has already built large-scale digital public infrastructure at population scale. Systems such as Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker and CoWIN demonstrated that low-cost digital architecture can serve hundreds of millions of people efficiently. For many developing countries struggling with fragmented digital systems, India’s model appears more adaptable and affordable than Western corporate platforms.

Several nations across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America have already expressed interest in adopting components of India’s digital stack.

Artificial intelligence now presents the next frontier.

India’s proposed approach is not necessarily about competing directly with Silicon Valley or Beijing in foundational AI supremacy. Instead, it may focus on creating a cooperative technology ecosystem among developing nations, one that prioritises affordable compute access, multilingual AI tools, open-source models, digital identity frameworks and localised governance systems.

Such an alliance could become strategically significant.

Friend Who Befriends South Easily

Many Global South countries face similar technological constraints: expensive cloud infrastructure, dependence on foreign platforms, lack of local-language AI models, cybersecurity vulnerabilities and limited semiconductor access. Individually, these nations have little bargaining power. Collectively, they represent billions of users, enormous datasets and rapidly growing digital economies.

India is increasingly positioning itself as the coordinator of that collective leverage.

This aligns with New Delhi’s broader diplomatic posture over the past decade. Whether through the International Solar Alliance, vaccine diplomacy during the pandemic or Global South summits, India has repeatedly attempted to frame itself as a voice for emerging economies navigating systems traditionally dominated by great powers.

AI governance may become the most consequential test of that ambition.

The debate is no longer purely technological. It is political, economic and civilisational. Questions around who owns training data, whose languages are represented in AI systems, which cultural norms shape moderation policies and who benefits economically from automation are becoming central to global policymaking.

Most large AI models today remain overwhelmingly English-centric and Western-trained. That creates structural disadvantages for countries with diverse linguistic ecosystems and different social realities. India, with its multilingual population and complex democratic environment, understands this challenge acutely.

Alternative to US or Chiinese AI Systems

If New Delhi successfully builds AI partnerships around multilingual development, open digital infrastructure and lower-cost deployment models, it could offer developing nations an alternative path that avoids total dependence on either American or Chinese ecosystems.

But the ambition faces serious obstacles.

India still lacks sufficient semiconductor manufacturing capacity, high-end GPU infrastructure and foundational model leadership compared to the United States and China. Private AI investment remains concentrated in a handful of global firms. Energy-intensive data centres require enormous capital and stable power infrastructure. Regulatory uncertainty around AI safety, copyright and data localisation also remains unresolved globally.

Moreover, geopolitical fragmentation could complicate coalition-building. Many developing countries continue balancing relations between Washington and Beijing, making technology alignment increasingly sensitive.

Still, India may possess one critical advantage: trust.

Unlike China, India’s digital outreach is often viewed as less coercive. Unlike Western technology giants, India’s public digital systems are seen as relatively affordable and interoperable. That positioning could allow New Delhi to emerge as a neutral technological partner for countries seeking digital modernisation without excessive strategic dependence.

The larger question is whether the Global South can avoid becoming merely a consumer base in the AI economy.

If artificial intelligence remains controlled by a handful of corporations and geopolitical blocs, the technological gap between developed and developing nations could widen dramatically over the next decade. Countries without sovereign digital infrastructure may eventually lose influence not only over their economies, but over information systems, labour markets and even public governance itself.

India appears to recognise that risk earlier than most.

Its push for a broader Global South technology alliance may therefore represent more than diplomatic branding. It could become an early attempt to reshape how emerging economies participate in the AI century, not simply as markets, but as stakeholders in building the rules, infrastructure and priorities of the next digital order.

In the coming years, that contest may prove as important as any traditional geopolitical rivalry unfolding today.