“India Proved The World Wrong”: Emmanuel Macron Hails India Stack And UPI At AI Impact Summit

French President Emmanuel Macron opened his remarks at the India AI Impact Summit on Thursday morning with a greeting in Hindi tradition and a sweeping endorsement of India's digital transformation.

Addressing a gathering of global technology leaders and policymakers, he pointed to how India's public digital infrastructure has reshaped everyday life and created a model other nations are now studying.

From a Mumbai Vendor to a Digital Economy

To explain India's progress, Macron described the journey of a small street vendor in Mumbai whose life changed through access to digital payments.

"10 years ago, a street vendor in Mumbai could not open a bank account," Macron began, "No address, no papers, no access... but today that same vendor accepts payments on his phone."

He used the example to underline that India's technological expansion is about social inclusion rather than gadgets alone.

"That is not a technology story," he said, "That is a civilisational story."

Macron said India's public digital infrastructure has achieved scale unmatched globally, highlighting digital identity, health systems and payments networks.

"India built something no other country in the world can... a digital identity for 1.4 billion people, a payment system that now processes 20 billion transactions every month, a health infrastructure that has issued 500 million digital health IDs..." the French President said.

India Stack and Democratising AI

Speaking directly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Macron linked India's digital foundations to the future of Artificial Intelligence.

"Here are the results. They call it the India Stack Open Interoperable Sovereign. That is what this summit is about. We are clearly at the beginning of a huge acceleration, and you perfectly described it during your interventions..." he said.

He also argued that earlier scepticism about India's digital inclusion had been disproved.

"Ten years ago, the world said 1.4 billion people could not be brought into the digital economy. India proved them wrong. And today, some say AI is a game only the biggest can play..."

According to him, meaningful innovation should not remain limited to large technology corporations or wealthy countries, but should be shared widely.

India-France Partnership on Responsible AI

Macron echoed the summit's human-centric approach to technology and backed cooperation between democratic nations in shaping AI governance.

"India and France, with Europe and our partners, those who believe in our approach... might have a different way... the future of AI will be built by those who combine innovation and responsibility, technology with humanity, and India and France will help shape this future."

He urged a shift in thinking about Artificial Intelligence from competition to collaboration.

"This is why access to AI for all is critical," he said, "France and India share a common vision - a sovereign AI to protect our planet and foster prosperity for all. Last year, in Paris, we called it action. This year, in Delhi, we call it impact. But the real name is simpler - AI together."

A Global Gathering on AI's Future

The summit, themed "sarvajan hitaya, sarvajan sukhaya" or welfare and happiness for all, is the fourth annual international conference on Artificial Intelligence after previous editions in the United Kingdom in 2023, South Korea in 2024 and France in 2025. It is also the largest so far, bringing together more than 20 heads of state and over 500 global AI leaders, including around 100 CEOs and founders.

Among those attending are OpenAI chief Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Google DeepMind head Demis Hassabis, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Wipro Executive Chairman Rishad Premji.