India's AI Policy Push: From Copyright Frameworks to Global Governance Leadership

India's AI Policy Laboratory: Forging a New Global Governance Paradigm

While Western capitals debate principles and voluntary codes, India is taking concrete, actionable steps to shape the future of artificial intelligence governance. Moving beyond its traditional role as a technology consumer and talent pool, the world's most populous democracy is positioning itself as a critical rule-maker for the generative AI era. This strategic pivot combines domestic regulatory innovation with international diplomacy and industrial partnership, creating a comprehensive blueprint that cybersecurity and policy professionals worldwide cannot afford to ignore.

The Hybrid Copyright Model: Balancing Innovation and Ownership

At the heart of India's domestic strategy is a pioneering approach to one of AI's most contentious issues: intellectual property. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has released a draft policy proposing a hybrid licensing model for AI-generated content. This framework represents a sophisticated middle path between the European Union's stringent copyright protections and the more permissive approaches seen elsewhere.

The model reportedly seeks to establish clear guidelines for training data usage while protecting creator rights—a delicate balance that has eluded many Western regulators. For cybersecurity experts, this has significant implications for data provenance, audit trails, and liability frameworks. By defining ownership and usage parameters at the policy level, India is attempting to preempt the legal ambiguities that currently plague AI development, potentially creating a more stable environment for secure AI deployment.

Convening Global Dialogue: The Safe and Inclusive AI Agenda

Parallel to its regulatory work, India is actively cultivating its role as a global convener on AI ethics and safety. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in partnership with the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), is hosting a pre-summit event in Chennai focused on "Safe and Inclusive AI."

This event serves multiple strategic purposes. First, it positions India as a neutral ground for dialogue between established tech powers and the Global South. Second, it allows India to export its particular vision of "digital public infrastructure" and inclusive growth to the AI governance conversation. The focus on "inclusive" AI directly addresses cybersecurity concerns around algorithmic bias, equitable access to security tools, and the democratization of defensive AI capabilities. By hosting such dialogues, India isn't just participating in the global conversation—it's actively shaping its agenda and terminology.

The Semiconductor Foundation: Building Strategic Autonomy

No AI governance framework can exist in a vacuum of technological dependency. Recognizing this, India's "Semiconductor Mission" has gained significant momentum, with major industry players like Intel publicly endorsing the initiative. Intel's CEO has specifically highlighted India's "young talent" as key to building a "tech-driven future."

From a cybersecurity perspective, semiconductor sovereignty is inextricably linked to AI security. Control over the hardware layer provides greater assurance against supply chain attacks, hardware backdoors, and vulnerabilities in critical AI infrastructure. India's push to develop domestic semiconductor capabilities, supported by international partners, strengthens its hand in AI governance discussions. A nation that both consumes and produces the foundational technology of AI can advocate from a position of greater authority and practical understanding.

International Alignment: The Poland Connection

India's AI diplomacy extends beyond multilateral forums to strategic bilateral partnerships. The upcoming visit of Poland's Foreign Minister, with cybersecurity and AI explicitly on the agenda, illustrates this approach. Poland, as a European Union member with growing tech capabilities and significant cybersecurity expertise, represents a valuable bridge between Indian initiatives and European regulatory frameworks.

Discussions likely encompass areas of mutual interest such as secure AI development protocols, cross-border data flow agreements with embedded security standards, and collaborative threat intelligence sharing related to AI-powered cyber attacks. This bilateral engagement allows India to test and refine its governance concepts with a technologically advanced partner before presenting them on larger stages like the G20 or UN.

Implications for the Global Cybersecurity Community

India's multifaceted approach creates several important implications for cybersecurity leaders and policymakers globally:

1. A New Regulatory Benchmark: The hybrid copyright model may become a reference point for other nations struggling to regulate AI-generated content, influencing global standards for data attribution and algorithmic accountability in cybersecurity tools.
2. Shift in Governance Geography: The center of gravity for AI policy discussions is expanding beyond Brussels, Washington, and Beijing to include New Delhi. Cybersecurity standards developed with Indian input may better reflect the needs and threat landscapes of emerging economies.
3. Hardware-Software Policy Linkage: India's simultaneous focus on semiconductor policy and AI governance highlights the growing recognition that AI security is a full-stack challenge, encompassing hardware, software, and data layers.
4. Alternative to Polarized Approaches: India's pragmatic, middle-path positioning offers a potential alternative to the increasingly polarized U.S. (innovation-first) and EU (rights-first) regulatory models, particularly for nations seeking balanced approaches.

The Road Ahead: From Proposal to Implementation

The true test of India's "AI Policy Laboratory" will be in implementation. Can the proposed hybrid licensing model be effectively enforced? Will the inclusive AI dialogues translate into concrete technical standards? How will India's domestic regulations align with its international partnership commitments?

For the global cybersecurity community, engagement with India's emerging framework is no longer optional. The policies developed in New Delhi and debated in Chennai will inevitably affect how AI is secured, audited, and deployed worldwide. India is not merely participating in the global AI order—it is deliberately constructing a new pillar within it, one built on a distinct vision of technological sovereignty, inclusive development, and pragmatic governance. As this vision takes shape, it will redefine not only who makes the rules for AI but what those rules ultimately seek to protect and enable.