The Biggest Questions About AI
The map · 4 Power · 4.4 International coordination and verification · 4.4.5

Representation

How can countries without frontier labs or large compute resources influence decisions that may profoundly affect them?

Most compute, capital, and rule-writing sits in a handful of countries. The UN process has moved from its 2024 advisory report to a Global Dialogue on AI Governance and an independent scientific panel — the current attempt to widen the table.

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What changed
January–August 2026 · swept August 3, 2026 · editorial review pending
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The global-majority claim moved from grievance to agenda: the UN's Geneva dialogue put widening the table at the center of its process, India's summit reoriented AI diplomacy from safety toward diffusion and development, and the scholarly reference now systematically documents how Western-dominated frameworks sideline majority-world priorities — alongside constructive agendas for compute access and governance influence rather than pure critique.

Recent thinking
4 pieces · January–August 2026 · all 4 chronologically →
Chinasa T. Okolo & Mubarak Raji · arXiv · Jan 2026 paper
The Global Majority in International AI Governance
the dominance of Western nations and corporations in shaping AI governance frameworks, which often sideline the unique priorities and contexts of the Global Majority.

The current scholarly reference on global-majority exclusion from AI rule-writing: systematic analysis of how Western-dominated frameworks sideline majority-world priorities, with proposals for redistributing governance influence.

UN News · 5 Jul 2026 news
Global push for AI governance amid warnings of 'catastrophic harm'
Governments, tech companies, academics and civil society will spend two days at the Global Dialogue on AI Governance wrestling with how to regulate a technology that is evolving faster than the rules meant to contain it.

The record of the Geneva Global Dialogue — the UN's flagship attempt to widen the AI governance table beyond the compute powers.

Amoha Basrur · Observer Research Foundation · 30 Mar 2026 essay
From Dialogue to Deployment: Strategic Outcomes of the India AI Impact Summit 2026
The adoption of the New Delhi Declaration, the wide participation of governments and industry, and the emergence of new knowledge outputs suggest that the institutional foundations for cooperation are taking shape.

Indian assessment of the New Delhi summit as a global-majority power move: a development-and-inclusion vision for the AI order articulated from outside the US-China duopoly.

Landry Signé · Brookings · 8 Jun 2026 essay
How to bridge the global AI divide
With the right strategies, the Global South can leapfrog legacy systems, build sustainable infrastructure, and shape global AI governance.

Constructive agenda for Global South agency in AI: strategies for compute access, infrastructure, and governance influence rather than a pure grievance framing of the divide.

Foundational reading (2)The Case for Including the Global South in AI GovernanceGovAI · 2023Governing AI for HumanityUN High-Level Advisory Body · 2024
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