India Pushes for Global AI Governance Framework as Tech Powers Clash Over Regulation

India is lobbying for international consensus on artificial intelligence governance through what it's calling a "Delhi Declaration," positioning itself as a bridge between Western regulatory approaches and the developing world's need for AI access.

The initiative comes as finance chiefs at multinational corporations navigate a fragmented global landscape where AI compliance costs vary wildly by jurisdiction. A CFO overseeing operations in both Brussels and Bangalore now faces radically different disclosure requirements, liability frameworks, and data localization rules—with India's proposal aimed at creating at least some common ground.

India's pitch centers on what officials describe as a "pragmatic middle path": establishing shared principles on AI safety and transparency without the prescriptive rules that characterize the EU's AI Act or the hands-off approach that's dominated U.S. policy until recently. The country has positioned itself as representing the interests of nations that want to harness AI for economic development but lack the resources to build comprehensive regulatory infrastructure from scratch.

For corporate finance teams, the appeal is obvious. Standardized AI governance principles could reduce the compliance overhead of operating across dozens of jurisdictions, each with its own emerging rulebook. The current trajectory—where every major economy writes its own AI playbook—threatens to create the kind of regulatory Balkanization that turned GDPR compliance into a cottage industry.

But there's a catch, and it's the same one that's plagued every attempt at global tech governance: the major powers can't agree on first principles. The EU wants binding rules with teeth. The U.S. has favored industry self-regulation (though that's shifting under pressure). China has its own model that blends state control with commercial ambition. India's declaration would need to bridge these fundamentally different philosophies about what AI governance even means.

The timing is notable. India is making this push as AI deployment accelerates in corporate finance functions—from automated reconciliation systems to AI-assisted forecasting models. CFOs are already asking their legal teams whether these tools require board-level disclosure, how to audit algorithmic decisions, and what happens when an AI system makes a material error. A common international framework could provide at least some answers.

The practical question is whether a "declaration" carries any weight. International agreements on tech governance have a mixed track record—lots of principles, limited enforcement. India would need buy-in from both the U.S. and China to make this meaningful, and those two aren't exactly in an agreement-signing mood on technology issues.

What finance leaders should watch: whether India can attract enough middle-power support to create a coalition that forces the major economies to engage seriously. If a bloc of 30-40 countries adopts common AI governance principles, even without U.S. or Chinese participation, that starts to look like a de facto standard that multinationals will need to follow. And that, more than any declaration, is what shapes corporate compliance budgets.