In this session, we begin by presenting the recent advances in the area of artificial intelligence, and in particular, foundation models, which are giving rise to the hope that artificial general intelligence capability is achievable in a not too distant future. We describe the tremendous progress of these models on problems ranging from understanding, prediction and creativity on one hand, and open technical challenges like safety, fairness and transparency on the other hand. These challenges are further amplified as we seek to advance Inclusive AI to tackle problems for billions of human beings in the context of the Global South.

We will present our work on improving multilingual capabilities and cultural understanding of foundation models like Gemini, and on improving the computational efficiency of LLMs to enable scaling them to serve billions of people. We then showcase how the multimodal and agentic capabilities of these models have the potential to unlock transformative applications like personalized learning for everyone.

We will also describe our work on analysis of satellite imagery to help transform agriculture and improve the lives of farmers. Through these examples, we hope to convey the excitement of the potential of AI to make a difference to the world, and also a fascinating set of open problems to tackle.