At the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed that China take the lead in establishing a BRICS AI open-source community.
His proposal envisaged cooperation in developing and applying large language models, conducting AI training and seminars and constructing a more open AI ecosystem. He also called for a broader international framework for AI governance.
Although India has not yet publicly endorsed the specific China-led initiative, there is considerable conceptual convergence between China’s proposal and India’s own emphasis on making AI more accessible, inclusive and oriented toward global development.
The New Delhi Declaration adopted at the 18th BRICS Summit emphasized international cooperation to improve accessibility to AI resources while ensuring safety, security, inclusiveness and reliability, particularly for the Global South.
Democratizing access to artificial intelligence
AI development is currently characterized by a high degree of technological and financial concentration. The most advanced computing infrastructure, foundation models, semiconductor capabilities, cloud systems and research ecosystems remain concentrated in a relatively small number of countries and companies. This creates a structural asymmetry between technological leaders and developing economies.
Open-source, or more broadly open, AI ecosystems can potentially reduce some of these barriers. Countries that cannot independently invest billions of dollars in frontier AI infrastructure could nevertheless develop applications, adapt models to local languages and circumstances, train researchers and build domestic technological capabilities. Such an approach could also facilitate the diffusion of knowledge and reduce some of the institutional and financial barriers that currently constrain participation in frontier AI development.
This is particularly relevant for the Global South. India has already placed considerable emphasis on the principle of “AI for All”, with its 2026 AI Impact Summit advocating collaborative, trusted, resilient and inclusive AI development. The New Delhi Declaration emerging from the summit emphasized broadening access, democratizing AI resources, developing human capital and using AI for economic growth and social good. The declaration was ultimately endorsed by 92 countries and international organizations.
China’s proposal at the recent BRICS Summit can similarly be understood as an effort to construct a wider technological ecosystem in which developing countries have greater access to AI capabilities. Xi’s proposal specifically includes cooperation on large language models, specialized training and seminars, and the creation of an open AI ecosystem.
Why China and India cooperation in open AI matters
India and China possess very different political systems, economic structures and approaches to technology governance. Nevertheless, they share an important characteristic: both are major developing economies with large populations, substantial technological capabilities and significant ambitions in artificial intelligence.
India possesses an enormous pool of software engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and digital consumers. Its experience with digital public infrastructure, payments, identity systems and large-scale digital platforms provides an important foundation for AI applications. India’s AI Impact Summit also placed particular emphasis on democratizing access to AI resources and ensuring that AI contributes to economic growth and social development.
China, meanwhile, possesses considerable capabilities in AI research, manufacturing, computing infrastructure, telecommunications, robotics and industrial applications. Xi’s proposal specifically links open AI cooperation with broader technological and industrial cooperation, including large language models, training and the construction of an open AI ecosystem. Combining these complementary capabilities could create opportunities that neither country could easily realize alone.
India could contribute software expertise, entrepreneurial capacity, digital public infrastructure and applications for a highly diverse and multilingual society. China could contribute manufacturing capabilities, hardware ecosystems, computing infrastructure and experience in large-scale industrial deployment.
The resulting partnership could extend beyond the two countries to other BRICS members and developing economies. Rather than treating AI simply as a domain of technological competition among major powers, India and China could explore whether selected areas of technological co-development could serve broader developmental objectives.
Open AI as strategic autonomy
The emerging AI landscape is increasingly associated with geopolitical competition. Access to advanced semiconductors, computing capacity, cloud infrastructure and sophisticated AI models is becoming increasingly intertwined with national security and strategic power. For countries outside the principal technology blocs, excessive dependence on any single technological ecosystem can create strategic vulnerabilities.
India has explicitly sought to avoid such dependence. Its AI diplomacy has emphasized strategic autonomy, international cooperation and broad accessibility. The New Delhi BRICS Declaration similarly states that international cooperation in enhancing access to AI resources should be accompanied by safety, security, inclusiveness and reliability, while promoting AI science and innovation and leveraging AI for economic growth and social good.
A genuinely international open AI ecosystem could therefore provide developing countries with an additional technological pathway. However, there are concerns in some quarters that replacing one form of technological dependency with another could undermine this objective. Therefore, for an open AI initiative to remain genuinely inclusive, its participation must be broad, its governance transparent, intellectual property questions carefully addressed. Participating countries must retain meaningful autonomy over their own AI policies.
The principle of strategic autonomy is therefore important not only for India but also for the wider Global South. Openness should not simply mean access to technologies developed elsewhere; it should also mean the capacity to participate in their development, adaptation, governance and deployment.
From competition to technological co-development
India–China relations in recent years have been dominated by geopolitical disagreements and strategic competition. Yet international relations need not be reduced to either cooperation or confrontation. Selective cooperation in areas of common interest is possible even when significant differences remain elsewhere.
Climate change, public health, food security and sustainable development have already demonstrated that certain global challenges cannot be effectively addressed through purely national approaches. Artificial intelligence increasingly belongs in the same category. The transnational character of AI technologies, their enormous infrastructure requirements and their potential social and economic consequences make international cooperation increasingly relevant.
A collaborative India–China AI framework could focus initially on areas with clear developmental benefits: agriculture, healthcare, education, climate modeling, disaster management, multilingual translation, smart cities and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Such cooperation would also benefit other developing countries. Indian and Chinese researchers could jointly develop AI systems adapted to Asian and Global South conditions rather than simply importing technological models designed primarily for Western markets.
For example, multilingual AI represents an area in which the linguistic diversity of India and the scale of China’s technological ecosystem could create opportunities for research and application beyond conventional English-language models. Similarly, agricultural AI, healthcare applications and climate-related technologies could be designed around the specific socioeconomic and environmental conditions of developing economies.
Such an approach would not necessarily require India and China to establish comprehensive technological cooperation. Rather, it could begin with carefully selected areas in which interests converge and where the developmental benefits are sufficiently clear to justify collaboration.
The need for safeguards
Support for open AI cooperation should not imply that technological openness by itself is sufficient. Artificial intelligence carries significant risks involving misinformation, privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, labour displacement and autonomous military applications.
Consequently, an India–China initiative would require robust governance mechanisms. The BRICS New Delhi Declaration already emphasizes AI accessibility together with safety, security, inclusiveness and reliability, while supporting international cooperation on AI science and innovation. It also calls for addressing challenges associated with data security, misinformation, disinformation, deepfakes and other forms of technological misuse.
The objective should be an open, interoperable and pluralistic AI ecosystem, with clear safeguards for data protection, intellectual property, cybersecurity, transparency and human oversight.
Governance would be particularly important because technological openness can create different outcomes depending on institutional arrangements. An effective framework would therefore need clear rules concerning data, model access, intellectual property, research collaboration, cybersecurity and accountability. It would also need to recognize national sovereignty while encouraging sufficient interoperability to allow meaningful international cooperation.
The challenge is to establish an equilibrium between openness and security, technological cooperation and national interests, and innovation and responsible governance.
A potentially important opportunity
The BRICS AI open-source community proposal should consequently be understood as more than another Chinese technology initiative. Properly structured, it could become an experiment in creating a more decentralized global AI ecosystem. Xi’s proposal and the subsequent BRICS New Delhi Declaration provide a basis for examining whether such cooperation can move from political aspiration towards practical technological collaboration.
India and China are unlikely to resolve all their strategic differences through AI cooperation. Nor should AI cooperation be expected to transform the broader bilateral relationship. But neither should geopolitical disagreements prevent cooperation where common interests are identifiable.
The central question before China and India is whether they can use emerging technological opportunities to strengthen their own strategic interests while contributing to a more inclusive global AI order.
India’s technological capabilities, developmental experience and international standing could make it a particularly important partner in transforming the proposal from a Chinese initiative into a genuinely international platform. If Beijing provides technological scale and infrastructure while New Delhi contributes software capabilities, digital public infrastructure, experience with large-scale digital systems and a strong emphasis on inclusive development, China and India could potentially make a formidable team in building a more open AI ecosystem for the Global South.
The significance of such cooperation would ultimately depend not on political declarations alone, but on whether both countries can establish practical mechanisms for research collaboration, technology sharing, capacity building and responsible governance. If those conditions can be developed, open AI cooperation within BRICS could become an important test of whether technological globalization can be made more inclusive.
At a time when artificial intelligence is becoming an increasingly important determinant of economic competitiveness, technological sovereignty and international influence, the Global South cannot remain merely a consumer of technologies developed elsewhere. India and China have the scale, capabilities and developmental experience to contribute to an alternative model – one in which technological innovation is accompanied by broader access, international cooperation and greater participation by developing economies.
The proposed BRICS AI open-source community therefore presents an opportunity for India and China to explore whether strategic competition can coexist with selective technological cooperation. The outcome would have implications extending well beyond their bilateral relationship. It could help shape the emerging debate over who develops AI, who controls its infrastructure, who benefits from its applications and how the technological future of the Global South is constructed.
