Bill Gates withdrew from India's AI Impact Summit just hours before he was set to deliver Thursday's keynote address, as scrutiny over his connections to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein mounted following the release of emails by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The abrupt pullout of Microsoft's co-founder dealt a fresh blow to a flagship event already marred by organisational lapses, a robot row and complaints of traffic chaos.
The six-day event still notched more than $200 billion in investment pledges for AI infrastructure in India, including a $110 billion plan announced by Reliance Industries on Thursday. India's Tata Group also signed a partnership deal with OpenAI.
Gates' cancellation follows the release of emails last month by the DOJ that included communication between late financier and convicted sex offender Epstein and the Gates Foundation's staff.
The foundation, started by Gates and his then-wife in 2000, said the billionaire will not deliver his address "to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit's key priorities." Only days ago, the foundation had dismissed rumors of his absence and insisted he was on track to attend.
The foundation's chief strategy officer and Africa and India chief Ankur Vora spoke instead of Gates.
Gates has said the relationship with Epstein was confined to philanthropy-related discussions and that it was a mistake for him to meet the sex offender.
He was among the top tech leaders due to attend the event among the likes of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
Gates' absence followed another high-profile cancellation by Nvidia's Jensen Huang earlier on Saturday, which added to a difficult opening for a summit billed as the first major AI forum in the Global South, where India has sought to position itself as a leading voice in worldwide AI governance.
In his keynote address, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for maintaining children's safety on AI platforms as he addressed the gathering on Thursday, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.
"We must be even more vigilant about children's safety. Just as a school syllabus is curated, the AI space should also be child- and family-guided," Modi said, after standing on stage with top AI executives and posing for photographs with their arms raised in a show of strength.
The photoshoot produced an awkward moment when Altman and Amodei, chiefs of rival AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic, stood side by side on stage but did not hold hands although the other executives did.
The symbolic unity pose was to declare the formal launch of the New Delhi Frontier AI Commitments, a set of voluntary principles adopted by leading AI companies at the summit to advance inclusive, responsible development of frontier AI models.
"One hundred million people in India now use ChatGPT each week," Altman told the gathering. Despite the investment successes, India's first major AI summit has been marred by organizational lapses that have left attendees shocked and angry over what they described as a lack of planning by the Indian government.
The summit exhibition halls were shut to the public on Thursday in a surprise move that led to more anger among participating companies that had put up stalls and pavilions. The venue compound was largely deserted after three days of large crowds at the event.
Indian university Galgotias was asked to vacate its stall after a staff member presented a commercially available robotic dog made in China as its own creation, sparking a public uproar.
Police repeatedly shut roads to give preference to VIP movement at the summit, creating chaos in the city of 20 million people. The Indian government has apologized for inconvenience caused to attendees in the initial days.
Opposition parties attacked the government and the prime minister for poorly managing the global summit.
"The whole summit is, sorry was, meant for researchers, founders, builders who are grinding in the field every day. Instead, we get treated like we don't matter, blocked for hours so some minister or official can pass through," Jay Gala, a Microsoft researcher, said on social media platform X.
