AI for the Global South (AI4GS) is a convening of researchers who work for and with Global South communities to co-define a 10-year holistic and transdisciplinary research agenda for increasing AI’s positive impact on the Global South.
While artificial intelligence has made extraordinary progress, its benefits remain unevenly distributed. The research and development of AI are largely influenced by efforts concentrated in the Global North, leaving vast opportunities for the Global South to take a more central role in shaping AI’s future.
As an official pre-summit event of the India AI Impact Summit to be held in February 2026, AI4GS will bring together leading voices from across the world — including AI researchers, social scientists, policymakers, ethicists, NGOs, and practitioners — to collaboratively design a decade-long roadmap that ensures AI development is inclusive, equitable, and responsive to real developmental needs.
As Faculty Lead of the MIT Global Humanities Initiative (GHI), Prof Wiebke Denecke will speak about how various projects of the initiative concretely address the vital question of how AI can represent the rich diversity of the world’s languages, cultures, and economies –and how this must be the basis on which we can design resilient social and institutional systems that are inclusive, equitable, and responsive to local needs across the globe.