{"id":433,"date":"2025-01-13T14:52:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T14:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simoninstitute.ch\/?p=433"},"modified":"2025-09-26T14:03:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:03:02","slug":"advancing-multilateral-ai-governance-recommendations-for-the-2025-paris-ai-action-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simoninstitute.ch\/blog\/post\/advancing-multilateral-ai-governance-recommendations-for-the-2025-paris-ai-action-summit","title":{"rendered":"Advancing Multilateral AI Governance: Recommendations for the 2025 Paris AI Action Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As multilateral AI governance stands at a crossroads, the 2025 AI Action Summit<\/a> in Paris presents an opportunity to accelerate and harmonize governance developments for the benefit of humanity. What makes this moment significant, and how can the international community best seize this opportunity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From December 2-4, 2024, we convened over 25 AI experts from civil society, governments, academia, and the technical community to tackle these questions. The workshop was titled \u2018Advancing Multilateral AI Governance,\u2019<\/strong> and was held at la Maison des Polytechniciens in Paris, France.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Multilateral AI Governance at a Crossroads<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Governments and the international community must prepare for further surprises in AI progress.<\/strong> The world has entered a rapidly changing opportunity and risk landscape. Over the last decade, we have seen AI compute quadruple every year<\/a>. This technological acceleration is likely to continue through 2030,<\/a> after which developers might run into limits to the power supply, chip supply, or data supply. At least another half a decade of increasing AI compute means that AI training and inference can be scaled significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global interdependence and international cooperation are severely challenged by a lack<\/a> of specialized governance expertise on frontier AI.<\/strong> Current AI systems are built by a small circle of companies, nourished by top talent from around the globe but clustered<\/a> around big tech infrastructure and investment. As a result of this localization, governments and international organizations – just like the broader population – are increasingly struggling to keep up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To maintain a shared understanding of humanity\u2019s trajectory, (re)building trust<\/a> for meaningful international cooperation is crucial.<\/strong> The rapid diffusion of AI capabilities across borders means that the regulation of potential harms will quickly need to surpass the jurisdictions of developer states. Competing interests need to be governed well – from national security to global development; and from maintaining public goods to driving industrial productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tough compromises will have to be made at the international level\u2014but international leadership is lacking<\/a> due to domestic headwinds and talent scarcity.<\/strong> Most governments lack know-how in frontier AI and the diplomatic capacity to facilitate exchange beyond like-minded countries. While the US and China are at the technical frontier and willing to engage, they first have to build bilateral communication capacity to overcome mistrust before leading more inclusive initiatives. Other governments either lack domestic support for international engagement; lack the expertise to lead on frontier AI, or focus on AI deployment to curtail economic headwinds and thus deprioritize safety<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>The 2025 AI Action Summit: An Opportunity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With France and India\u2019s stewardship\u2014cognizant of domestic realities\u2014the 2025 AI Action Summit<\/a> promises international progress.<\/strong> Across the summit\u2019s five tracks, France has created spaces for all stakeholders to contribute to the governance of AI: Public interest AI; Future of work; Innovation and Culture; Trust in AI; and Global AI Governance. Within these discussions, we hope to see economic development and technical safety emerge as particularly crucial priorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous AI Summits have proven valuable as a forcing function<\/a>, providing a deadline for governments, companies and researchers to meet and deliver outcomes on AI governance.<\/strong> As a result, summits have accelerated domestic AI policy as well as international cooperation. Their attendance has balanced concern for legitimacy with efficiency: they\u2019ve included both China and the US; key global majority countries; companies; academia and civil society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While technical coordination amongst allied groups is critical<\/a>, diplomatic leadership<\/a> is required to curb frustration and bridge growing divides through productive dialogue.<\/strong> From mistrust between great powers to the global need for economic development – across middle powers as well as LMICs – AI governance has to become understood as a cross-cutting issue, as well as a specialized technical issue in and of itself. In light of these complexities, it is important to leverage the comparative advantages of different fora relevant to AI governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We organized a workshop to develop recommendations for the 2025 AI Action Summit, with the aim of developing an AI governance regime that satisfies the following three criteria:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n