NEW DELHI - India has started discussions with social media companies about introducing age-based restrictions for children, a top government official said Tuesday, as the world’s most populous nation weighs following Australia and other countries in regulating youth access to online platforms.
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw confirmed the government is holding conversations with various social media companies about the appropriate way to implement age limits. The discussions also cover stronger regulation of deepfake content, he said.
“This is something which has now been accepted by many countries that age-based regulation has to be there,” Vaishnaw told reporters at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.
His remarks mark the first indication of potential national action on the issue from India. Australia in December began requiring platforms including TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat to remove accounts held by users under 16 or face significant fines. French lawmakers last month passed a bill that would ban social media for those under 15, though it requires a final Senate vote.
Vaishnaw said the conversations with platforms are at an early stage. “Right now we are in a conversation regarding deepfakes, regarding age-based restrictions with the various social media platforms and… what is the right way to go about this,” he said.
The minister also called for tighter rules on synthetic and misleading media. “We need much stronger regulation on deepfakes,” Vaishnaw said. “It’s a problem which is growing day by day. And certainly there is a need for protecting our children, protecting our society from these harms.”
Last week, India introduced tighter rules for artificial intelligence technology. Those rules require social media platforms to clearly label AI-generated content and comply with government takedown requests within three hours.
Vaishnaw spoke on the sidelines of the five-day AI Impact Summit, which organizers said is the first in the annual series of international AI gatherings to be hosted by a developing country. Nearly 20 world leaders and dozens of ministerial delegations are attending to discuss issues including AI’s impact on jobs and the environment.
The minister also provided details on India’s artificial intelligence investment landscape. He said the country expects more than $200 billion in AI-related investments over the next two years, including roughly $90 billion already committed.
Separately, India’s Adani Group announced Tuesday it plans to invest $100 billion by 2035 to build “hyperscale AI-ready data centres.” The conglomerate said the investment would catalyze an additional $150 billion in spending across sectors such as server manufacturing and cloud platforms.
India has moved up in global rankings of AI competitiveness. Last year it rose to third place in an annual index calculated by Stanford University researchers, overtaking South Korea and Japan. Despite the progress, experts say India still trails the United States and China significantly in AI development.
As part of efforts to boost computing power, Vaishnaw said the government has deployed 13,000 graphics processing units under its common compute program. He said orders will be placed within a week for another 20,000 GPUs, which are expected to be installed within six months. The expansion aims to “provide high-quality resources to our startups, researchers and students,” he said.
Tech executives scheduled to attend the summit include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. A Gates Foundation spokesperson confirmed Gates would deliver his keynote address as planned, following Indian media reports that his appearance had been canceled. Vaishnaw declined to comment on the withdrawal of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang from the event.