- Gates’ absence comes after Huang of Nvidia canceled
- Alongside French President Macron, Modi opens the conference, which is criticized for its inadequate administration.
- Over $200 billion in AI investments are drawn to the event.
- Altman and Anthropic’s Amodei find Modi’s AI unity pose unsettling.
NEW DELHI, Feb. 19 (Reuters) – Bill Gates withdrew from India’s AI Impact Summit only hours before his planned keynote address on Thursday, as questions about his connections to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became more pressing after emails from the U.S. Justice Department were made public.
A major event that was already tainted by organizational errors, a robot dispute, and allegations of traffic jams was dealt a new blow by the sudden withdrawal of Microsoft’s co-founder.
Over $200 billion in investment commitments for AI infrastructure in India were made at the six-day event, including a $110 billion plan revealed by Reliance Industries (RELI.NS), which opens a new tab on Thursday. Additionally, OpenAI and India’s Tata Group inked a partnership agreement.
Gates’ cancellation comes after the DOJ released emails last month that showed correspondence between the staff of the Gates Foundation and the late businessman and convicted sex offender Epstein.
The billionaire will not give his speech, according to the organization, “to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities.” The foundation had denied reports of his absence just days prior and maintained that he was scheduled to attend.
Gates was replaced by Ankur Vora, chief strategy officer of the foundation and head of Africa and India.
When asked by Reuters if the withdrawal was connected to the investigation into the Epstein files, a spokeswoman for the charity, which Gates and his then-wife founded in 2000, did not reply.
Gates has stated that the contact was limited to conversations about philanthropy and that meeting the sex offender was a mistake.
Among the leading tech executives who attended the event were Sundar Pichai, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, the CEO of Anthropic, and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google (GOOGL.O).
A challenging start to a summit billed as the first major AI forum in the Global South, where India has attempted to establish itself as a leading voice in global AI governance, was made worse by Gates’ absence, which came after another high-profile cancellation by Nvidia’s (NVDA.O), opens new tab Jensen Huang earlier on Saturday.
Alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke at the event on Thursday and urged the preservation of children’s safety on AI platforms. Concerning the safety of children, we need to be even more watchful.
Modi stated, “The AI space should be child- and family-guided, just as a school syllabus is curated,” following a group of top AI executives posing for pictures on stage with their arms lifted in a display of power.
When Altman and Amodei, the CEOs of rival AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic, stood side by side on stage without holding hands while the other executives did, it created an awkward moment during the picture shoot.
The New Delhi Frontier AI Commitments, a set of voluntary principles embraced by top AI businesses at the summit to promote inclusive, responsible development of frontier AI models, were formally launched at the symbolic unity pose.
Traffic jams and chaos
Participating businesses who had set up exhibits and pavilions were even more incensed when the summit exhibition rooms were unexpectedly closed to the public on Thursday. After three days of sizable audiences, the venue compound was mainly empty.
After a staff member claimed to have created a commercially viable robotic dog in China, causing a public outrage, Indian institution Galgotias was forced to leave its booth.
Roads were frequently blocked by police to allow VIP movement during the summit, causing pandemonium in the 20 million-person city. The Indian government has expressed regret for any difficulty that attendees experienced during the first several days.
The prime minister and the government were criticized by opposition parties for mishandling the international meeting.Apologies, but the entire summit was intended for researchers, founders, and builders that work tirelessly every day.
Instead, we are ignored and blocked for hours so that a minister or official may get through,” Microsoft researcher Jay Gala wrote on the social media platform X.
Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Soni, and Aditya Kalra reported from New Delhi; Additional reporting by Abhirami G. and Sakshi Dayal; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Kim Coghill, and Muralikumar Anantharaman
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