EU & India must build own AI capacity with home-grown data, says top EU official Virkkunen at New Delhi summit
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "EU & India must build own AI capacity with home-grown data, says top EU official Virkkunen at New Delhi summit")
Representative image. Photograph: (Freepik)
The European Commission's Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, highlighted the need for both sides to strengthen their own AI capabilities while collaborating closely.
A top EU official has emphasised the growing partnership between the EU and India in shaping the future of AI, even as the Delhi summit is underway. Speaking to WION, Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission's Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, highlighted the need for both sides to strengthen their own AI capabilities while collaborating closely.
"I think this (AI summit) will be, of course, a very important milestone now, again, because AI has been developing very fast during the last few years," she said. "When we look at these AI summits earlier, I think the first one was very much about the safety of AI. Last year was very much about investments in AI. And I think now the focus is more on how we are implementing AI, how we make sure that everybody has access to this important technology, and how our industry, small businesses and public sector are also able to uptake AI."
Ms Virkkunen, named one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in AI in 2025 for her role in advancing the EU AI Act and promoting tech sovereignty, stressed the importance of home-grown innovation."It is very important that India and also the European Union, that we are building up our own capacity on AI," she said.
"So it's very important to have the technology and knowledge. Also, it's important to train AI with our own content, with our own languages in our countries. And of course, here, it's important to also do cooperation and partnership, because we both, we share very much the same goal that we want to create really AI, which is trustworthy and human-centric."
The comments come amid heightened EU-India engagement, building on recent high-level summits.
Virkkunen pointed to joint efforts on pressing global challenges, including environmental monitoring and climate change preparedness. "We have been really here also testing AI, how we can use it better to really monitor the environment and also, for example, what kind of impacts climate change will mean in the future, and how we are better also prepared for that," she said.
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"So we can really use AI, for example, those kinds of topics, and it has been one of the projects where we have been working together with India at the same time." She also underscored sustainability in AI development, noting the technology's high energy consumption.
"Of course, it's also very important, when we are investing in AI, to make sure that we are investing to best technologies, that we are investing in very energy-efficient systems, because we know that AI is also consuming a lot of energy."
In Europe, the focus is shifting towards widespread adoption, particularly in healthcare and industry. "We are now having very high ambition, especially when it comes to healthcare, that we are using AI more to really, for the screening purposes, for example, when it comes to cancer, really, to also see that what kind of situation there is, and also to be able to give a better quality of healthcare," Ms Virkkunen said.
"We are now combining AI, for example, with our automotive sector, really to build up more productivity and also for different testing environments. So for us, it's very important to now really support our industry, especially SMEs, to uptake AI, and also the public sector, especially their healthcare. " The summit, hosted by India as the first major AI gathering in the Global South, has drawn leaders from over 20 countries and tech executives, showcasing New Delhi's rising role in global AI governance.
