By Robert Booth
Publication Date: 2026-02-20 17:23:00
IIndia will celebrate 80 years of independence from the United Kingdom in August 2027. At about the same moment, “early versions of true superintelligence” could emerge, OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman said this week.
It’s a looming coincidence that raised a thorny question at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi, hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Can India avoid returning to vassal state status if it imports AI to improve the prospects of its 1.4 billion people?
Modi’s desire to harness the capabilities of AI is great. He compared it on Thursday to a turning point that changes the direction of civilization, like when “the first sparks came out of the stone.” The most common analogy heard among the thousands of attendees at the summit was the beginning of electricity, but Modi spoke of fire.
His desire to use AI to boost India’s economic growth is accompanied by the desire of large…
