USA and UK Refuse to Sign Joint Declaration at AI Summit 2025
The 3rd Artificial Intelligence Summit 2025 (#AI2025) took place in Paris from 10 to 11 February 2025. The previous two editions of the annual event took place in South Korea in 2024 and was initiated in UK in 2023. The AI Summit is considered as the premier global event on #AI, bringing together world leaders and technology experts to discuss AI and related issues.
Among the world leaders, we note Indian PM Narendra Modi, US Vice-President James Vance and Chinese Zhang Guoqing. Leaders of international and regional organizations such UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres and EC President Ursula Von der Leyen were also present. Event Pope Francis from the Vatican sent a message for the occasion.
Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Demis Hassabis of Google Deepmind were all present. Liang Wenfeng of Deepseek, though invited, preferred to intervene by videoconference.
Altogether, representatives from some 100 countries making up a total of 1,500 attendees were at the Grand Palace in Paris for the AI Summit. Macron and Modi co-chaired the Summit, with both countries contemplating to join hands to catch up with China and the USA.
The EU passed tough laws on data privacy and social media over the last decade and has also taken the lead on AI governance with the AI Act. However, VP Vance is of the opinion that over-regulation at this stage of rapid development might prove to be an impediment more than anything. In particular, the US is not too keen on the #GreenAI initiative as it ramps up the construction of power-hungry AI data centers. Pope Francis qualified the Summit as a ‘praiseworthy initiative’ but stressed the importance of human oversight over AI.
Following Trump’s announcement of the #Stargate program with a total investment of USD 500 billion in AI, President Macron announced EUR 109 billion (USD 113 billion) of investment to build up the French AI ecosystem. At the same time, he showcased the intelligent chatbot from French AI startup Mistral who ambitions to be the top AI model in the Francophone space.
Not to be left behind, EC President Von der Leyen announced that the EU is launching its #InvestAI initiative which aims to mobilize both public and private funds with a target of EUR 200 billion to keep EU in the AI race. Combined with the in excess of EUR 100 billion pledged by France, the total for EU is well over EUR 300 billion, which is less than the USA, but certainly not so less either.
Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing highlighted that China is willing to share its achievements in the field of AI to build ‘a community with a shared future for mankind’ and work together with other countries on governance aspects. As a matter of fact, the Deepseek AI code is open source and available online for download.
During his visit in France, PM Modi will deepen cooperation with France not only on AI, but also on other domains such as defense and nuclear energy. India also ambitions to build its own AI model which will be unveiled at the next AI Summit in 2026 to be held in India.