A BRICS summit hosted in New Delhi has closed without an agreement on China’s proposal to lead artificial intelligence development across the bloc, as Indian officials and media continue to express distrust of Beijing on data security and technology issues.
China’s state-run Global Times acknowledged Monday that tensions between Beijing and New Delhi have blocked progress on common AI standards within BRICS, a bloc that includes both nations along with other emerging economies. The outlet cited unnamed Chinese analysts who argued that Chinese-Indian cooperation held promise “given their huge markets, development needs and respective technological strengths,” but said realizing that potential would require “stronger political mutual trust,” pointing to Indian concerns over “data security, technological dependence and strategic autonomy.”
At the summit, Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged that China would “be a pioneer in establishing a BRICS AI open source community, support cooperation in developing and applying large language models, hold specialized AI seminars and training courses, and build an open ecosystem for AI.” He also proposed a “BRICS digital ecosystem cloud platform” that would oversee “digital skills training, technological exchange and industrial alignment” across member countries.
The summit’s final statement endorsed cooperation on AI research generally, but stopped short of adopting China’s specific proposals for a Chinese-led open source community or cloud platform, according to the Global Times account.
Indian Wariness Cited as Key Obstacle
The Global Times quoted Hu Zhiyong, a professor at Zhejiang International Studies University who studies India, saying “China-India cooperation in AI could face a difficult path unless mutual trust improves.” Hu said India has “frequently subjected Chinese technology and investment to scrutiny on national security and data security grounds,” which he suggested has slowed joint efforts to compete with Western AI development.
Indian media outlets have shown interest in a BRICS-wide AI framework, but reporting indicates that interest does not extend to accepting Chinese leadership over such an initiative.
Debate Playing Out in Washington Too
The New Delhi summit unfolded as a separate debate over AI regulation intensified in the United States. A push among some American companies and Democratic lawmakers for a slowdown in AI research drew sharp criticism from President Donald Trump, who argued that any unilateral U.S. restraint would only benefit China, which he said would not honor similar limits.
Trump raised suspicions that Chinese influence operations may have contributed to the sudden wave of anti-AI sentiment in the U.S. “We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against A.I. and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Nothing said by Xi or Indian officials at the New Delhi summit indicated BRICS members were considering the kind of AI research slowdown being debated in American political circles.
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