Paris AI Summit: Why France as an AI ally can help India match US, China

China, a closed economy, has already achieved a generative AI breakthrough with DeepSeek’s model. US president Donald Trump is vying to retain America’s dominance in global technology by instituting curbs on AI and high-tech exports. Indian industry stakeholders said an agreement with France can give the country a significant international partner—both as part of its global geopolitical strategy and to expand soft power by developing and selling AI applications, models and services.

“Mistral, a French company, is also one of the top 10 global names in AI applications and services. This would give India a strong partner for the long run, and also reduce the overall dominance that Big Tech firms have today,” said Kashyap Kompella, AI analyst and founder of tech consultancy firm RPA2AI Research.

Moreover, according to him, “If global investments start drying up in India, a strong strategic partner in the EU can help India take its AI development to the world.”

Investment gaps and the role of France

While China’s investments into AI are undisclosed, the US has promised to invest $500 billion ( ₹43 trillion) into its AI project Stargate. France, too, announced €109 billion ( ₹9.9 trillion) investment corpuses for AI. These are far larger than India’s $1.2 billion ( ₹10,400 crore) AI mission that seeks to establish a repository of graphic processing units (GPUs) to power training, and a marketplace to fund and support domestic AI applications and services developers for enterprises.

On Tuesday, prime minister Narendra Modi said at the plenary session of the Paris AI Action Summit that India has one of the world’s largest pools of AI talent around the world—but is keen on working with nations. Modi is set to host bilateral talks with France’s president Emmanuel Macron for sharing of resources between the two nations.

Modi’s vision and India’s AI strengths

Showcasing India’s unified payments interface (UPI) as an example, Modi said India’s success in opening up the digital payments infrastructure for 1.4 billion people is being emulated by the country in AI—and other nations partnering with India can benefit from it too.

“We are developing AI applications for public goods. We have one of the world’s largest AI talent pools. India is building its own large language model, considering our diversity,” Modi said. “We also have a unique PPP model for pooling resources like compute power. It is made available to our startups and researchers at an affordable cost, and India is ready to share its experience and expertise to ensure that AI’s future is for good and for all.”

Ajai Chowdhry, industry veteran and co-founder of HCL Technologies, India’s third-largest tech services firm, said that there is “no reason why a partnership with France would not benefit India.”

“As the world becomes more fragmented in its approach to AI, open-source models and development will be a key factor of getting multiple nations to agree upon a common set of standards for the nascent technology,” he said.

“Given that China is not a nation that is keen on looking at strategic partnerships globally, and with the US also taking a self-contained approach, there is no denying that leveraging India’s already-existing strong relations with France can be a clear way of forging a strong bilateral agreement on sharing AI innovations between each other,” Chowdhry said.

Global AI landscape and geopolitical shifts

Shortly after Modi’s keynote, US vice-president JD Vance said in his speech that “America is the leader in AI, and our administration plans to keep it that way,” underlining the US’ intent.

The US dominates the global technology market. Over half the world’s semiconductors, and cloud and software services are supplied by Big Tech firms such as Nvidia, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. 

To be sure, Microsoft had announced a $3 billion investment in India’s AI and cloud infrastructure as recently as a month ago. But that was before Trump was sworn in as the US president. This, experts said, can change in the near term—underscoring the importance of bringing in France as a key partner.

On Monday, Mint reported that the Indian government was expected to sign an agreement with France on shared development of AI resources and applications. Modi on Tuesday called for a consensus to “develop open-source systems that enhance trust and transparency”.

“We must build quality datasets, free from biases. We must democratize technology, and create people-centric applications,” he said. “We must also address concerns related to cyber security, disinformation and deepfakes, and ensure that technology is rooted in local ecosystems for it to be effective.”

Potential of India-France partnership 

Highlighting the need for global collaboration, he said, “India and France have worked together for years through initiatives like the International Solar Alliance to harness the power of the sun. As we advance our partnership to AI, it is a natural progression from sustainability to innovation.”

HCL’s Chowdhry said the digital public infrastructure model has shown the world that India can successfully build and deploy a technology framework as a public good.

“India and France both have strong, advanced skills in mathematics—a fundamental building block for AI. In the long run, a collaborative approach to AI development between India and France will align with their sovereign strategies, but there needs to be consistent focus on self-sufficiency as well alongside global partnerships.”