In February, New Delhi will bring together policy makers, industry leaders and researchers for the AI Impact Summit, with the tagline “People, Planet, Progress”. This summit marks a turning point as the center of gravity for the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) shifts to emerging countries, which are home to three-quarters of the world’s population. With this summit, India, already a leader in AI skills diffusion, positions itself as a shaper rather than just an adopter of these technologies.
But the success of the New Delhi summit will depend on how effectively it addresses the realities of AI adoption, including the need for workforce development, beyond the rhetoric. To this end, on January 23, the Atlantic Council held an official pre-summit event in collaboration with the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC. The event began with remarks from Ajay Kumar, Minister (Commercial Affairs) of the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC, and Tess Devlan Knowles, Senior Director of Technology Programs at the Atlantic Council. This was followed by a panel discussion with Martijn Rasser, Vice President of Technology Leadership at Special Competitive Research Projects. Nicole Isaac, vice president of global public policy at Cisco. and Peter Lovelock, chief consultant and innovation officer at Access Partnership. Below are some of the key takeaways from that discussion and some of the panelists’ recommendations for how to approach these issues heading into the AI Impact Summit. The discussion highlighted that while the potential for AI-driven growth is immense, it is not just market forces that will need to overcome hurdles ranging from global talent shortages to fragmented labor data.
Global AI talent gap
According to Lasser, the current global AI talent landscape can be viewed as a pyramid. At the top, he said, there are about 10,000 elite doctoral-level researchers and machine learning engineers. Currently, the United States and China dominate this top tier of researchers, but the real opportunity for emerging powers lies at the applied level. While India has great depth in the services sector, the real challenge is building organizational readiness to ensure that organizations can effectively deploy available talent into high-value applications.
The most underappreciated flaws are in AI-related skills, not raw coding. There is an urgent need for product managers and domain experts who can bridge the gap between technology tools and organizational needs. Lovelock said the goal for emerging countries is not to recreate Silicon Valley labs, but to create an ecosystem where AI is “embedded” in industrial applications such as supply chain management and import/export calculations.
AI infrastructure as workforce policy
“At its core, AI is designed, built and deployed by humans,” Knowles said. Indeed, a persistent theme for many around the world is that connectivity cannot be separated from workforce policy. Isaac pointed out that without reliable digital access, billions of people will remain excluded from the transformative benefits of AI. Security is another foundational layer. As AI environments become more complex, cybersecurity and digital resilience training will become essential to protect vulnerable populations from bad actors.
Kumar, an Indian embassy official, explained India’s strategy for a comprehensive five-layer “AI stack” that includes a sovereign model, semiconductors and data centres. He argued that by providing computing power to educational institutions at a fraction of the global market, the government aims to democratize access across smaller cities. However, the widening digital divide remains a threat. If certain segments of the population are left behind, the resulting divide between the “haves and have-nots” can last for generations, he said.
Another data problem
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Lovelock said policymakers are currently working with “static” data in their rearview mirror. Traditional labor statistics are often based on outdated surveys and are unsuited to rapidly changing technology. Additionally, labor data is often fragmented across different ministries, making it difficult to understand where the real skills gaps are.
Individual AI uses are so diverse that standard adoption metrics are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Lovelock said governments need an “adoption framework” that measures the actual economic impact of AI use, rather than tracking who is using the technology. Only then can you make the strategic bets needed for long-term investment returns.
Four Pillars of the Summit’s AI Talent Agenda
Based on panelists’ insights, the AI Impact Summit can deliver a scalable and comprehensive AI talent framework by uniting the global community around four key actions:
- Modernize education through personalized AI tools. Rather than adhering to the “one-to-many” broadcast model of traditional schooling, curriculums need to be reformed to bring AI tools directly to students. This transition will enable personalized learning, allowing students to learn while doing and prepare for a rapidly changing job market.
- Create an AI Adoption Index to measure actual adoption. Policymakers need to move from static adoption statistics to real-time data signals that measure how AI is being integrated into industry and public services. This requires supplementing government surveys with non-traditional data sources to better match educational outcomes with actual labor market demands.
- Treat connectivity and security as fundamental issues for your employees. Investments in fiber and satellite infrastructure must be combined with digital resilience and cybersecurity training. This allows the benefits of AI to be widely shared and protects new users from the increased risks of AI-enabled environments.
- Positioning governments as “first users” of new technologies. The public sector must take the lead in implementing AI in the delivery of public services in agriculture, healthcare, and education. By demonstrating the utility and accessibility of these tools within government, states can send a strong signal to the broader public and accelerate national adoption.
The success of the AI Impact Summit will be measured not only by the declarations made by participants, but also by the structured collaboration that continues beyond February. This summit provides a rare opportunity to pool the world’s resources to solve the AI workforce crisis, replacing anecdotal evidence of AI adoption with rigorous data and flexible approaches that respond to changing workforce needs. At the summit, New Delhi has an opportunity to transform the week-long dialogue into a sustained and collaborative framework to help emerging economies harness the benefits of AI adoption.
Trisha Ray is an associate director and resident researcher at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center.
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