The UK organisation for the business of Open Technology

OpenUK Report on AI Openness at the Delhi Impact Summit 2026 

Finds Meaning Amid The Noise on Open Source, Digital Public Goods and civic tech

• New Delhi Declaration supports commitment to open source AI 
• Commons Tools to be shared on voluntary basis
• Role for open source in keeping AI “Access For All vision” is present, but not up on stage
• Open washing concerns in launches at Summit
• Presence but no power for civil society

London UK and New Delhi, India  –  23 February 2026 – OpenUK, the non-profit organisation convening the UK’s Open Technology sector, and its international sister OpenHQ, announced their AI Openness Report on the 2026 Global AI Impact Summit held in Delhi over the past week.  Presidents, Prime Ministers and Ministers from more than 65 countries attended the first AI summit held in the Global South. The event hosted 10’s of thousands of delegates at hundreds of sessions focused on three Sutras – “People, Planet and Progress”. 

Amanda Brock, CEO at OpenUK,  attended the event and Inauguration Day and is listed on the Summit site as a keynote attendee. She commented:  “It was fantastic to see so much conversation about open source across the Summit. Even better to finally have world leaders like PM Modi, President Macron, the US Ambassador and UK AI Minister recognise the importance of open source. But..despite the verbal statements and inclusion in the Summit statement there were reports and model releases at the event, some at a State level, where open source is used without full commitment to its basic principles or understanding of what it is and how it works. 

This was disappointing to see, given how much the open source community has done to educate policy leaders. When businesses and policy organisations appropriate the term open source as a marketing term to convince politicians of their intentions, it does everyone a disservice. Open Source’s community leaders must have a stronger voice on the global stage to support the work of governments, policy makers and enterprises and to ensure their promises around AI Access to All will succeed. It’s not just that the terminology matters, but that these projects will not reap the expected benefits if the key ingredients of open source are not respected. 

Over the next year, improving understanding and precision around how terms are defined will be a key goal for the community, or everyone will risk losing out on the potential for AI to deliver access for all. Open source can only empower innovators and democratise AI when the basic principles of open source are honoured. 

This is particularly relevant for the 2027 Summit now confirmed in Geneva. Switzerland already has a law that all software paid for by the public purse must be open source.” 

Open source was mentioned many times alongside news announcements, but the commitment to licence all the components on open source licenses was not delivered, not even open weights for AI models which fell behind the discussions taking place on-stage. While new model releases were announced as being “open source”, the licenses themselves were non-commercial proprietary licences and not open source or even open weights.

During the conference, multiple terms like open source, civic tech, public good and digital public good were used as a cloak to hide behind, without drilling down into what was really being discussed. Amanda suggested that 2026 will become the year of the ontology, referring to the precise definition of a range of specific terms. Where everyone agrees on the meaning of areas like open source and digital public goods – both of which are already defined or standardised – it is easier to translate the ideals and objectives set out into reality.  Without this accuracy, policy leaders can support approaches that are not open source, missing out on the long term agility, flexibility and delivery that is needed.

The UK High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron, hosted 1200 guests in her garden in Delhi for a night to remember and included AI Minister Kanishka Narayan and Amanda Brock speaking on the event’s main stage before an OpenUK video was shown,  in which the Minister pledges support to open source and emphasises OpenUK’s important role, as we move towards his pledge that the “UK will be the home of open source AI”.

About OpenUK and OpenHQ

OpenUK is the organisation for the business of Open Technology, being Open Source Software, Open Source Hardware, Open Data, Open Standards and AI Openness across the UK. Its purpose is UK leadership and global collaboration in Open Technology. OpenUK works on three pillars: Community, Legal and Policy and Learning.  In 2025 OpenUK focused on AI and openness and soft launched its sister organisation OpenHQ to focus on coalescing international communities such as that in India for international policy initiatives. 

OpenUK is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, company number 11209475.

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