Secure Frontiers, Shared Futures

This convening, held on 29th January 2026 in partnership with the AI Impact Summit, Observer Research Foundation and Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), served as an official pre-summit dialogue ahead of the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. The subject matter comprised the status of India–UAE cooperation, particularly in the areas of strategic digital infrastructure, cyber resilience and AI governance. Discussions comprised two core panels: (1) Powering the Future: Building Resilient and Sustainable AI Infrastructure, which examined the physical, energy and investment foundations of AI at scale in the UAE, India and globally; and (2) Securing the Digital Frontier: Navigating New Vulnerabilities, focusing on cybersecurity, data sovereignty and trust frameworks amid deepening digital integration between India, the UAE and global partners.

Key Takeaways

• AI infrastructure is now a strategic and physical concern, not just a digital one. Hyperscale AI systems place unprecedented demands on energy, water and land, with data centres increasingly comparable to critical national infrastructure. Without deliberate planning, AI expansion risks exacerbating grid stress, environmental strain and systemic vulnerabilities.
• Resilience must be designed in from the outset. Centralised, hyper-concentrated compute creates single points of failure vulnerable to climate events, grid collapse, or targeted attacks. Distributed and decentralised AI infrastructure—supported by cross-border partnerships—was repeatedly emphasised as essential for long-term resilience.
• Energy-AI interdependence is becoming a core policy challenge. AI cannot rely on public grids at scale without displacing citizen needs. Participants highlighted the growing role of clean energy, small modular nuclear reactors and dedicated AI energy infrastructure to ensure both sustainability and social legitimacy.
• The Global South risks a new ‘compute divide’ without access-oriented models. Democratizing access to compute power, high-quality data and semiconductor supply chains is critical to preventing a two-tier AI world of ‘haves and have-nots’. India–UAE collaboration was framed as a potential model for inclusive AI development.
• Cybersecurity risks scale with integration, not just sophistication. As financial systems, ports, health infrastructure and energy grids become digitally interconnected, attack surfaces multiply. Static security approaches are insufficient; adaptive, AI-enabled resilience and shared incident-response mechanisms are increasingly necessary.
• There is no single global standard for ‘trusted AI’, but shared principles matter. While universal certification regimes remain unlikely, alignment around baseline practices such as red-teaming, transparency, explainability and culturally contextual risk assessment can lower transaction costs and build trust across borders.
• Geopolitical credibility will define AI leadership as much as technology. In a polarised global landscape, the ability to work credibly with multiple partners, while safeguarding sovereignty, data and national interests was identified as a decisive advantage. Think tanks and research institutions were underscored as vital in filtering noise, shaping consensus and translating leadership vision into actionable governance frameworks.