Bill Gates pulls out of India AI Summit; Anger at organizational weakness is growing

By Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra

NEW DELHI, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Bill Gates pulled out of India’s AI Impact Summit hours before his scheduled keynote speech on Thursday, dealing another blow to a major event already marred by complaints of organizational glitches, robot queues and traffic chaos.

Gates’ absence, after another high-profile cancellation by Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, added to a difficult opening for the summit billed as the first major artificial intelligence forum in the Global South, where India seeks to position itself as a leading voice in global AI governance.

The Gates Foundation said the billionaire would not give his address “to ensure the AI ​​Summit remains focused on its key priorities.” Just days ago, the foundation dismissed rumors of his absence and insisted that he was on track to attend.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called for the safety of children on AI platforms while addressing a gathering along with French President Emmanuel Macron, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.

“We have to be more vigilant about children’s safety. Just as the school curriculum is curated, the AI ​​space should be child- and family-directed,” Modi said after standing on stage with top AI officials and posing for a photo with hands raised in a show of power.

The photoshoot produced an awkward moment when Oltman and Amodei, the heads of rival AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic, stood side by side on stage but did not hold hands, even though other executives did.

India’s first major AI summit has been marred by organizational lapses that have shocked attendees and angered what they described as a lack of planning by the Indian government.

Chaos and traffic jams

Gates’ revocation comes after the US Department of Justice released emails last month that included communications between the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Gates Foundation staff.

Gates has said the relationship was limited to philanthropic discussions and that meeting Epstein was a mistake for him.

The summit exhibition halls were closed to the public on Thursday in a surprise move that caused further outrage among the participating companies that had stalls and pavilions. The venue was deserted after a large crowd for three days.

Galgotias, an Indian university, was asked to vacate its stall after a public outcry erupted after a staff member passed off a commercially available robot dog made in China as his own creation.

Police repeatedly blocked roads to prioritize ‘VIP traffic’ to the summit, creating chaos in the city of 20 million people. The Government of India has apologized for the inconvenience caused to the attendees during the initial days.

But on Wednesday, footage on social media showed many summit participants walking for miles in central Delhi as roads were closed, taxis were unavailable and no shuttle services were arranged.

The opposition parties have criticized the government and the prime minister for not organizing the world summit properly.

“How can you expect your engineers, the AI ​​guys, to walk this far … and then we complain that entrepreneurs are leaving India,” Congress party spokesperson Pawan Khera said.

Still, more than $100 billion has been invested in India AI projects pledged at the summit, including by Adani Group, tech giant Microsoft, and data center firm Yota.

The Indian government expects total pledges to exceed $200 billion over the next two years, though analysts warn the rapid construction risks straining India’s power grid and water supplies.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengatil, Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Additional reporting by Aditya Soni, Sakshi Dayal, and Abhiram Ji; Editing by Kim Cogill, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan)