That may offer us a way to take a positive look at this weekend’s BRICS Summit in New Delhi. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa represent differing ideologies and stages of growth, strengths, and development within that broad acronym as strong emerging economies, and recent members such as Iran and Saudi Arabia (otherwise at loggerheads) give it some extra muscle.

Between the US-Iran war and the various kinds of trade tugs-of-war featuring US President Donald Trump, there is plenty of cynical crystal-ball gazing one can do, but the focus here must be on artificial intelligence (AI), which could be a big opportunity for BRICS amid the prevailing confusion. 

AI’s Picasso Paradox

AI has become something like a Picasso painting – to be interpreted and analysed with deep interest, and insufficient clarity. This week, Wall Street pundit Ruchir Sharma examined the prospects of an AI bubble in financial markets as 10-year US Treasury bond yields touched 4.8%. Sharma sees a bubble happening if the benchmark yield touches 5%. When the hazy but strong long-term opportunity presented by a revolutionary technology such as AI meets the burden of a burgeoning US fiscal deficit and the everyday realities of money managers, strange confusions can present themselves.

This could well be an opportunity for the BRICS summiteers. There is a clear and present danger of the summit sinking into a broad-brush statement full of good intentions, but at the end of the day, I would like to see BRICS as a show of strength to a Trumpist US that has been acting like a global bully. If the prospects of an AI bubble meet the optimism of BRICS, we could be looking at the fructification of global sanity at a point where high technology meets troubling trade disputes.

While BRICS talks in “Global South” idioms, honestly, it is time to shed old cliches about the divides between developed and developing economies. You just cannot eat the cake of being aspiring superpowers (with special reference to China and India) and eyeing the old-world kindness with which developed countries looked at economies emerging out of their colonial yokes.

The AI Divide

The BRICS agenda talks of bridging the AI divide (the newest version of the digital divide). The heavy concentration of AI patents and computing power held by Western Big Tech conglomerates is indeed a matter of concern, and gets worse if US state policies sound like a bully in administrative motion.

BRICS needs to point to the uncertainties that loom, besides the promise that AI offers. Nvidia’s revenues are zooming, but uncertainties begin with the value and revenues generated by the companies and customers who use its awesome chip power. From data security and sovereignty to intellectual property abuse, there is a whole set of governance issues that BRICS nations are underlining with good reason.

What the reality check on the long-term impact of AI offers is a scenario in which market opportunities in the Global South will meet the financial uncertainties of the West, especially the US. This is where BRICS would do well to sound like a trading bloc rather than a bunch of developing countries pleading for high-tech largesse. You either do business or you beg for justice. BRICS needs to make up its mind. The New Delhi meeting presents a good chance to underline the former.

For this, some of the jingoistic and outdated political ideas within the BRICS grouping need to be put on the back burner. Trump sees everything through the power prism or a trade lens. BRICS must move with confidence to say that all is not well with AI, and we need some kind of negotiating table to get a realistic global perspective.

AI Governance

In this context, BRICS’ attempts to gravitate towards a UN-centred oversight of AI governance rather than simply join the Western regulatory bandwagon is a good idea. Cross-border data transfer and privacy issues need to be thrashed out carefully. Above all, in the post-Trump world in which the Strait of Hormuz is a living example of mockery of international law, we need to also talk of the enforceability of AI governance in a connected world.

There is a long and winding road ahead.

The Internet Economy As A Case Study

What happened to the Internet since its emergence in the 1990s is an example of how zig-zag things can be. Brands such as Nokia, Intel, Netscape, and Yahoo, which made mobile telephony and the World Wide Web happen, are hardly to be seen, while Meta, Google, and Nvidia, which emerged after the initial hype, are dominating the new landscape. We need to be aware that today’s Big Tech players can be tomorrow’s laggards or losers.

If BRICS can send this message across, it adds to the negotiating muscle for the new age. If there is anything Wall Street optimism fuelled by Silicon Valley innovation hates, they are the financial and strategic clouds that loom over the rosy futures that traders sell. The “dotcom bubble” circa 2000 and 2001 showed things can change dramatically for the Internet economy (not to speak of the 9/11 attacks whose anniversary coincides with the BRICS summit).  

Why should it necessarily be any different for the AI economy?

A New Global Consensus

You can’t talk of silo economics in a connected world – and yet that is what we often do as we bandy around terms like data sovereignty, trade tariffs, data centre locations, and cybersecurity (please note nationalistic disputes often involve hacker attacks).  

We can dub them either as legitimate nationalistic anxieties or as negotiating positions in a march towards a new global consensus. BRICS needs to show power, not pusillanimity, in drafting a framework that looks like a negotiating document – not a petition for generosity.

In the backdrop of issues such as US dollar domination and central bank digital currencies, there is considerable economic strength in BRICS to potentially overshadow the geopolitical contradictions embedded in the motley group. But that is precisely the issue. As a grouping, hopefully with India as an intellectual clearing ground, BRICS needs to arrive at a consensus on what to put behind it in political terms, so that it shows economic clout in what to take forward. 

Is that asking for too much?

(The writer is a senior journalist covering a diverse range of subjects, including economy, technology, and politics. Views expressed are personal.)