India built what no one else did: Macron shares street vendor’s story

At the India-AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, French President Emmanuel Macron praised India’s digital transformation, citing a Mumbai vendor’s journey to digital payments. He highlighted strategic AI cooperation with Narendra Modi, emphasising innovation, sovereignty, and responsible technology

New Delhi: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday recounted a compelling story at the India-AI Impact Summit 2026, highlighting India’s digital transformation through the example of a Mumbai street vendor who, a decade ago, was unable to open a bank account but now seamlessly uses online payment systems.

Opening his keynote address with a warm ‘Namaste’, the French President expressed gratitude to the hosts, saying, “Thank you very much for welcoming us to this magnificent city and this magnificent country. It is great to be back after my 2024 state visit for this Artificial Intelligence Impact Summit hosted by you, Mr Prime Minister.”

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Macron then shared an anecdote to underline India’s technological strides. “I want to begin with a story. Ten years ago, a street vendor in Mumbai could not open a bank account — no address, no papers, no access. Today, the same vendor accepts payments on his phone instantly and for free from anyone in the country. That is not just a tech story; it is a civilisation story. India built something no other country has built — a digital identity for 1.4 billion people,” he said.

Emphasising the scale of India’s digital infrastructure, he added, “India built something that no other country in the world has built. A digital identity for 1.4 billion people. A payment system that now processes 20 billion transactions every month. A health infrastructure that has issued 500 million digital health IDs.”

Speaking about the India Stack Open Interoperable Sovereign, the French President said, “That is what this summit is about. We are clearly at the beginning of a huge acceleration, and you perfectly described it during your interventions.”

Turning to the broader global landscape of artificial intelligence, Macron observed that the field has increasingly become an arena of geopolitical competition. Referring to last year’s joint initiative, he noted, “Last year, when France and India co-hosted the AI Action Summit in Paris, we set a global guiding principle for technologies that would transform our societies and our economies. We say that Artificial Intelligence will be an enabler for our humanity to innovate faster, to disrupt healthcare, energy, mobility, agriculture, and public services for the good of mankind. Both of us believe in this revolution. AI has become a major field of strategic competition, and big tech got even bigger.”

“Over the past year, AI has become a field of strategic competition, but there remains a path focused on innovation, independence, and strategic autonomy. India has made sovereign choices by developing small, task-specific language models and deploying 38,000 government-funded GPUs at affordable rates to support startups,” he said.

Concluding his address, Macron returned to the story that framed his speech, stating, “I started with a story about a street vendor in Mumbai. Ten years ago, the world told India that 1.4 billion people could not be brought into the digital economy. India proved them wrong. Today, some say AI is a game only the biggest can play.” “India, France, Europe, together with our partners, those who believe in our approach, companies, governments, investors, might have a different way… The future of AI will be built by those who combine innovation and responsibility, technology with humanity, and India and France will help to shape this future together,” Macron concluded.