During the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit on July 2, 2026, India and Japan formally adopted a Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence cooperation, acknowledging AI as a transformative, era-defining technology with significant implications for innovation, economic security, and the international order. This agreement builds upon previous initiatives like the Japan-India AI Cooperation Initiative and the first India-Japan AI Strategic Dialogue, establishing regular strategic dialogues on AI and reaffirming commitment to international AI governance frameworks such as the G20 and OECD. The partnership focuses on elevating both nations as strategic research and development partners, strengthening cooperation in secure digital infrastructure including data centers, GPU compute resources, and semiconductors, and aims to invite 500 highly skilled Indian AI professionals to Japan by 2030. Several institutional agreements were signed, including collaborations on large language models and AI technology stacks, and both sides welcomed outcomes from the New Delhi AI Impact Summit, such as the Trusted AI Commons platform and the "AI for All" vision, while also discussing AI-enabled cybersecurity and Japan's commitment to hosting an upcoming AI summit.

During the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit on July 2, 2026, India and Japan formally adopted a Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence cooperation, acknowledging AI as a transformative, era-defining technology with significant implications for innovation, economic security, and the international order. This agreement builds upon previous initiatives like the Japan-India AI Cooperation Initiative and the first India-Japan AI Strategic Dialogue, establishing regular strategic dialogues on AI and reaffirming commitment to international AI governance frameworks such as the G20 and OECD. The partnership focuses on elevating both nations as strategic research and development partners, strengthening cooperation in secure digital infrastructure including data centers, GPU compute resources, and semiconductors, and aims to invite 500 highly skilled Indian AI professionals to Japan by 2030. Several institutional agreements were signed, including collaborations on large language models and AI technology stacks, and both sides welcomed outcomes from the New Delhi AI Impact Summit, such as the Trusted AI Commons platform and the "AI for All" vision, while also discussing AI-enabled cybersecurity and Japan's commitment to hosting an upcoming AI summit.

During the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit on July 2, 2026, India and Japan formally adopted a Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence cooperation, acknowledging AI as a transformative, era-defining technology with significant implications for innovation, economic security, and the international order. This agreement builds upon previous initiatives like the Japan-India AI Cooperation Initiative and the first India-Japan AI Strategic Dialogue, establishing regular strategic dialogues on AI and reaffirming commitment to international AI governance frameworks such as the G20 and OECD. The partnership focuses on elevating both nations as strategic research and development partners, strengthening cooperation in secure digital infrastructure including data centers, GPU compute resources, and semiconductors, and aims to invite 500 highly skilled Indian AI professionals to Japan by 2030. Several institutional agreements were signed, including collaborations on large language models and AI technology stacks, and both sides welcomed outcomes from the New Delhi AI Impact Summit, such as the Trusted AI Commons platform and the "AI for All" vision, while also discussing AI-enabled cybersecurity and Japan's commitment to hosting an upcoming AI summit.

India and Japan adopted a dedicated Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence cooperation during the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit on 2 July 2026, describing AI as an "era-defining general-purpose technology" with long-term implications for innovation, economic security and the international order.

Building on the Japan-India AI Cooperation Initiative and the first India-Japan AI Strategic Dialogue held in April 2026, the two leaders agreed to hold regular strategic dialogues on AI going forward.

Both governments reaffirmed the significance of the Hiroshima AI Process and highlighted the Guidance Note on AI Governance developed during the India AI Impact Summit, committing to closer coordination in international forums including the G20, OECD and the United Nations.

A significant focus was placed on infrastructure and talent.

The two countries decided to elevate India and Japan as strategic research and development partners, strengthening cooperation on secure digital infrastructure including data centres, GPU compute resources and semiconductors.

They reaffirmed a goal, first set at the India-Japan Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue in January 2026, of inviting 500 highly skilled Indian AI professionals to Japan by 2030.

Several institutional agreements were signed alongside the statement, including a memorandum of understanding between IIT Bombay, the BharatGen Technology Foundation and Japan's National Institute of Informatics for joint research on large language models, as well as an agreement between Sarvam and Preferred Networks and a memorandum of cooperation between India AI and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The two leaders also welcomed outcomes from the New Delhi AI Impact Summit, including the Trusted AI Commons platform and the "AI for All" vision from the New Delhi Declaration, and discussed AI-enabled cybersecurity cooperation with particular attention to critical infrastructure protection. Modi also welcomed Takaichi's announcement that Japan will host an AI summit at the earliest opportunity.

Here is the additional fact-checked paragraph to insert into the AI article, placed after the second paragraph (on infrastructure and talent) and before the concluding paragraph on outcomes:

Why this pact

The AI partnership did not emerge overnight; it traces back to the Japan-India AI Cooperation Initiative launched by Prime Minister Modi and then Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba during the 15th Annual Summit in Tokyo in August 2025, when Japan's stated concern was reducing reliance on American and Chinese AI systems for economic security reasons.

That initiative was operationalised through the 18th Japan-India Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue in January 2026, where External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and his then Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi agreed to establish a dedicated AI Strategic Dialogue.

The first such dialogue was held in Mumbai and Bengaluru in April 2026, where Japanese officials explicitly framed India as a "key Global South partner" whose scale and software talent could be paired with Japan's precision hardware and industrial expertise.

According to reports, days before the July 2026 summit, Japan's industry ministry and India's IT ministry also signed a bilateral memorandum under which Japan would grant India access to a supercomputer managed by its National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, addressing India's infrastructure gap, while India would help ease Japan's shortage of software talent, a complementary arrangement that underpinned the broader AI statement signed at the summit.

TAGS