Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and head of the Gates Foundation, withdrew from India’s AI Impact Summit on Thursday just hours before his scheduled keynote, according to the foundation. The move comes amid a summit already beset by organisational lapses, a robot mishap, and traffic complaints from delegates.
The Gates Foundation stated that the cancellation was “to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities.” The decision follows earlier assurances from the foundation that Gates would attend, dispelling prior rumours of his absence.
The summit will still feature addresses from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, French President Emmanuel Macron, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Gates’ absence follows another high-profile withdrawal by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, compounding the summit’s challenging start.
Gates’ cancellation comes in the wake of recent U.S. Department of Justice documents revealing communications between Gates’ staff and the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, indicating meetings after Epstein’s prison term to discuss philanthropic projects. Gates has stated that his interactions were limited to philanthropy and has called meeting Epstein a mistake.
The AI Impact Summit, billed as the first major artificial intelligence forum in the Global South, aims to position India as a leading voice in global AI governance, but the withdrawals of Gates and other executives highlight early organisational challenges.
