Bill Gates pulled out of India’s AI Impact Summit hours before his scheduled keynote address on Thursday, dealing another blow to a flagship event already marred by organisational lapses, a robot row, and complaints of traffic chaos.
Still, the six-day event notched more than $200 billion in investment pledges for AI infrastructure in India, including a $110 billion plan announced by Reliance Industries (RELI.NS), opens a new tab on Thursday. India’s Tata Group also signed a partnership deal with OpenAI. Gates’ absence, however, followed another high-profile cancellation by Nvidia’s Jensen Huang earlier this week and added to a difficult opening for a summit billed as the first major AI forum in the Global South, where India has sought to position itself as a leading voice in worldwide AI governance.