In a captivating address at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, French President Emmanuel Macron kicked off with a heartfelt ‘Namaste’ and shared an inspiring tale from Mumbai’s bustling streets. He spotlighted a street vendor who, just a decade ago, couldn’t open a bank account due to lacking proper documents or address proof. Today, that same vendor seamlessly collects payments via his smartphone from anyone in the country, instantly and for free.
Macron described this transformation not merely as a tech advancement but as the story of an entire civilization’s leap forward. ‘India has built something no other country has,’ he declared, emphasizing the nation’s unparalleled digital infrastructure: a digital identity for 1.4 billion people, a payment system processing 20 billion transactions monthly, and a health framework that has issued 500 million digital health IDs.
Reflecting on last year’s joint France-India hosted AI Action Summit in Paris, Macron underscored the global guiding principles they established for AI to revolutionize society and economies. He highlighted AI’s potential in accelerating innovation for humanity in healthcare, energy, mobility, agriculture, and public services. Both nations, he affirmed, believe deeply in this revolution amid growing strategic competition in AI dominated by tech giants.
Yet, Macron praised India’s path of innovation, self-reliance, and strategic autonomy. By developing compact, task-specific language models and providing 38,000 government-funded GPUs at affordable rates to startups, India is carving out sovereign choices in AI.
Drawing full circle to the street vendor’s story, Macron challenged skeptics who once doubted India’s ability to digitize 1.4 billion people. ‘India proved them wrong,’ he said. Now, as some claim AI is a game for the big players only, he rallied India, France, Europe, and like-minded partners to forge an alternative path—one blending innovation, responsibility, and technology with human values. Together, they will shape AI’s future.