Paris, February 11, 2025
Part of Feature: Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence
Actors from more than 100 countries on 5 continents, from governments, international organizations, private companies, social partners, civil society and academia, research and culture, met from February 6 to 11, 2025 in Paris and decided to act together for artificial intelligence (AI).
Recalling their commitment to a common approach based on the sharing of science, solutions and shared standards, they announced more than a hundred concrete actions and commitments in favor of a trusted AI accessible to all, around three axes:
- to give everyone the means to take ownership of the AI revolution;
- promote the development of sustainable AI;
- strengthen the international AI governance system to make it more effective and inclusive.
A declaration by the heads of state of the Summit for Action on AI, co-chaired by France and India, supports this approach, with the support of the United Nations.
At a time when the development of AI continues to accelerate, its applications to diversify and its use to expand, it is up to everyone – states, companies, organizations, citizens – to shape this technology, whose full potential has yet to be achieved, according to our values.
The summit was prepared with input from more than 11,000 citizens, who responded to an extensive online consultation, as well as more than 800 researchers, entrepreneurs and creators, at nearly 100 events around the world leading up to and on the margins of the Summit.
Paris actions for artificial intelligence
Declaration on sustainable and inclusive artificial intelligence for people and planet
Paris, 11 February 2025
1. Participants from over 100 countries, including government leaders, international organisations, representatives of civil society, the private sector, and the academic and research communities gathered in Paris on 10 and 11 February 2025 to hold the AI Action Summit.Rapid development of AI technologies represents a major paradigm shift, impacting our citizens, and societies in many ways. In line with the Paris Pact for People and the Planet, and the principles that countries must have ownership of their transition strategies, we have identified priorities and launched concrete actions to advance the public interest and to bridge digital divides through accelerating progress towards the SDGs. Our actions are grounded in three main principles of science, solutions – focusing on open AI models in compliance with countries frameworks – and policy standards, in line with international frameworks.
2. This Summit has highlighted the importance of reinforcing the diversity of the AI ecosystem. It has laid an open, multi-stakeholder and inclusive approach that will enable AI to be human rights based, human-centric, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy while also stressing the need and urgency to narrow the inequalities and assist developing countries in artificial intelligence capacity-building so they can build AI capacities.
3. Acknowledging existing multilateral initiatives on AI, including the United Nations General Assembly Resolutions, the Global Digital Compact, the UNESCO Recommendation on Ethics of AI, the African Union Continental AI Strategy, and the works of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the council of Europe and European Union, the G7 including the Hiroshima AI Process and G20, we have affirmed the following main priorities:
- Promoting AI accessibility to reduce digital divides;
- Ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all
- Making innovation in AI thrive by enabling conditions for its development and avoiding market concentration driving industrial recovery and development
- Encouraging AI deployment that positively shapes the future of work and labour markets and delivers opportunity for sustainable growth
- Making AI sustainable for people and the planet
- Reinforcing international cooperation to promote coordination in international governance
To deliver on these priorities:
- Founding members have launched a major Public Interest AI Platform and Incubator, to support, amplify, decrease fragmentation between existing public and private initiatives on Public Interest AI and address digital divides. The Public interest AI Initiative will sustain and support digital public goods and technical assistance and capacity building projects in data, model development, openness and transparency, audit, compute, talent, financing and collaboration to support and co-create a trustworthy AI ecosystem advancing the public interest of all, for all and by all.
- We have discussed, at a Summit for the first time and in a multi-stakeholder format, issues related to AI and energy. This discussion has led to sharing knowledge to foster investments for sustainable AI systems (hardware, infrastructure, models), to promoting an international discussion on AI and environment, to welcoming an observatory on the energy impact of AI with the International Energy Agency, to showcasing energy-friendly AI innovation.
- We recognize the need to enhance our shared knowledge on the impacts of AI in the job market, though the creation of network of Observatories, to better anticipate AI implications for workplaces, training and education and to use AI to foster productivity, skill development, quality and working conditions and social dialogue.
4. We recognize the need for inclusive multistakeholder dialogues and cooperation on AI governance. We underline the need for a global reflection integrating inter alia questions of safety, sustainable development, innovation, respect of international laws including humanitarian law and human rights law and the protection of human rights, gender equality, linguistic diversity, protection of consumers and of intellectual property rights. We take notes of efforts and discussions related to international fora where AI governance is examined. As outlined in the Global Digital Compact adopted by the UN General Assembly, participants also reaffirmed their commitment to initiate a Global Dialogue on AI governance and the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and to align on-going governance efforts, ensuring complementarity and avoiding duplication.
5. Harnessing the benefits of AI technologies to support our economies and societies depends on advancing Trust and Safety. We commend the role of the Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit and Seoul Summits that have been essential in progressing international cooperation on AI safety and we note the voluntary commitments launched there. We will keep addressing the risks of AI to information integrity and continue the work on AI transparency.
6. We look forward to next AI milestones such as the Kigali Summit, the 3rd Global Forum on the Ethics of AI hosted by Thailand and UNESCO, the 2025 World AI Conference and the AI for Good Global Summit 2025 to follow up on our commitments and continue to take concrete actions aligned with a sustainable and inclusive AI.
Signatory countries:
- Armenia
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Bulgaria
- Cambodia
- Canada
- Chile
- China
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czechia
- Denmark
- Djibouti
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Italy
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
- Kenya
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Mexico
- Monaco
- Morocco
- New Zealand
- Nigeria
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Serbia
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- South Africa
- Republic of Korea
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Thailand
- Netherlands
- United Arab Emirates
- Ukraine
- Uruguay
- Vatican
- European Union
- African Union Commission
The Paris Charter for Artificial Intelligence of General Interest
To achieve the potential benefits and preventing and mitigating the risks of emerging technologies for people and the planet, AI development, deployment and governance must be in the public interest. Public interest manifests differently for different communities, countries, and contexts, it requires opportunities for public participation, and it must serve equity and equality. We acknowledge that the mission and vision of artificial intelligence in the public interest builds on and is strengthened by existing definitions and academic research, public sector approaches, and civil society efforts.
Neither the benefits nor the harms from technology fall on society in a proportionate manner. Benefits are typically available to the most advantaged in society and harms all too often are faced by the most disadvantaged. To that end we reaffirm our commitment to prevent and mitigate individual and collective harms, risks, threats and violations caused by the use and abuse of AI. We recognize that artificial intelligence should not be developed and deployed in areas where it is incompatible with international human rights law.
In addition to appropriate safeguards to prevent, mitigate and remedy any adverse impact arising from the use of artificial intelligence, we need an affirmative vision to fully serve AI in the public interest.
The benefits of AI in the public interest rely on building open public goods and infrastructure, providing an alternative to existing market concentration, ensuring democratic participation, enforcing accountability and developing environmentally sustainable solutions. To fulfil this vision, we focus on enabling conditions for infrastructure in areas with demonstrated benefits in the public interest.
The barrier to scaling AI models has been assumed to be primarily the lack of availability and affordability of compute. While computational power is indeed subject to market concentration failures, the availability of high-quality data with adequate data governance structures proves to be the main bottleneck. New ways to access high quality data is key to unlock and ensure that public interest prevails. These new ways to access data must happen in compliance with the rights to privacy and data protection in line with national and international frameworks as essential safeguards and as the necessary precondition for people, companies and institutions to trust the AI ecosystem and enable necessary data flows.
Smaller models can be designed to respond to concrete societal and community needs within specific local and cultural contexts, and given they require comparatively less computational power and data, will have a much less pernicious impact on the environment.
With this in mind, we agree on the following principles:
- Openness drives progress in science, catalyzes innovation and enables competition. Today, openness in AI is largely driven by a few actors’ decision to partly open their foundation models. A resilient ecosystem is needed to support the development of open models, spanning both standard setting, tooling and best practices.
- Accountability across every step of AI design, development, and deployment is a cornerstone in achieving AI for the public interest. Accountability relies on the enforcement of existing national and international frameworks, enabling conditions for research, oversight and empowered institutions and civil society.
- Participation and transparency are prerequisites for democratic governance in AI in the public interest.
To achieve these objectives, we support the establishment of a global initiative for AI in the public interest. The undersigned country partners commit to uphold the values of AI in the public interest laid down in this Charter. We will address the challenges and realize the potentials for AI in the public interest through identifying our contributions and aligning on shared objectives in select areas of collaboration by 30 June 2025.
By enabling AI systems that are open, diverse, sustainable, locally relevant, development-centered and accessible around the world, and by providing structured access to high-quality datasets, models, compute and independent auditing and accountability tools, this initiative will serve as a platform for AI innovators, reformers, and advocates in their own countries while fostering international cooperation.
Through the initiative for AI in the public interest we commit to encourage a more comprehensive and inclusive design of AI in the public interest, in terms of technology, organization and institutions that serve different jurisdictions and communities in attaining similar success.
The initiative for AI in the public interest will enable civil society and impacted communities, academia, governments and other stakeholders to engage in a deliberation process to embed and enforce public interest within and beyond this initiative.
We will pursue this vision through collaboration, and it will enable participation to ensure that public interest prevails in the initiative’s mission, governance and impact.
Endorsed by
- Chile
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- India
- Kenya
- Morocco
- Nigeria
- Slovenia
- Switzerland
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Paris Declaration on Maintaining Human Control in AI enabled Weapon Systems
Co-Chairs’ Statement on International Artificial Intelligence Governance
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