Norway enters a global arena – but not without noise
When Minister of Digitalisation Karianne Tung landed in New Delhi in February 2026, she was part of something larger than a bilateral friendly meeting. The AI Impact Summit – with around 150,000 participants from over 30 countries, 20 heads of state, and 60 ministers – is one of the world's largest AI summits. For the first time, Norway had an official delegation in place, and Tung led a dedicated session on safe and responsible AI use.
But while the Norwegian delegation communicated trust, transparency, and democratic values, the debate raged around the summit itself.
The robot scandal that put India's AI ambitions under the microscope
The most talked-about event during the summit was what quickly became known as the "robot scandal." Galgotias University exhibited a robot called "Orion" at its stand in Bharat Mandapam – and presented it as a result of its own AI center for research excellence. The problem: the robot was the commercially available Chinese Unitree Go2, easily recognizable to technology experts.
India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) intervened quickly and ordered the university to leave the premises, with a message of "zero tolerance for misinformation," according to video recordings from the incident. Opposition politician Rahul Gandhi took to social media and accused the organizers of exhibiting "Chinese products" while India talks about technological independence – and questioned the country's data security and real AI capacity.
Congress politician Salman Soz went further, characterizing the entire summit as an event that prioritizes "optics over substance" – where critical discussions about AI and job displacement in a labor-intensive economy like India's were pushed aside in favor of prestigious photos with world leaders.
"Directionless use of AI" – PM Modi's own warning term on day four, after the controversies had taken over the news cycle.
Tung with a clear Norwegian profile – in the middle of the chaos
Against this backdrop, the Norwegian delegation's message appeared almost demonstratively different. Karianne Tung, who led Norway's session on trustworthy AI together with Heather Broomfield from the Norwegian Digitalisation Agency (Digdir) and the Norwegian Center for Trustworthy AI (TRUST), stuck to a message of openness and democratic decision-making processes.
"Artificial intelligence will go through all these areas and be important in the coming years. I think here is a good time for Indian and Norwegian collaborations in the years to come," Tung said according to coverage from ANI News and DD News.
She praised India's digital infrastructure and said directly that Norway has something to learn from how India has scaled digital public services to 1.4 billion people. The statement was widely quoted in Indian media – and illustrates a conscious Norwegian communication strategy: not to lecture, but to learn together.
Broadly interpreted, Norway's positioning in India is about building credibility through values, not just trade. Ambassador May-Elin Stener has emphasized the TEPA agreement as a milestone and highlighted the inclusion of women in AI development as a Norwegian priority, according to Business Standard.
Common platform: democratic AI as trade policy
What binds Norwegian and Indian AI rhetoric together is the notion of a "third way" – neither the US laissez-faire model nor China's state-directed control. Le Monde summarized the mood from the summit: India wants to lead an alliance of nations that do not want to choose sides, but build sovereign, inclusive AI systems.
India's IndiaAI Mission, funded with $1.2 billion, supports open-source models like Sarvam (with support for 22 Indian languages) and BharatGen Param2 (17 billion parameters). India has also approved $18 billion in semiconductor projects and sets a goal of data centers worth $200 billion, according to a press release from PIB (Press Information Bureau of India).
This initiative is compatible with the Norwegian political profile: Norway brings expertise in privacy, public sector technology, and ethical AI – not demands for market dominance.
The TEPA agreement: the real commercial foundation
Behind diplomatic rhetoric lies a concrete trade agreement. The India-EFTA Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) – covering Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland – entered into force in autumn 2025 and explicitly facilitates cooperation in AI, digital technology, cybersecurity, the maritime sector, and health.
India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited Oslo and pitched India as an investment destination to Norwegian business leaders, according to the Economic Times. PM Modi has announced a visit to Norway later in 2026 – which will provide further momentum.
For Norwegian companies, this means concretely: TEPA provides market access, and the political context from the New Delhi summit provides credibility. Sectors that stand out are ethical AI and health tech, green energy and offshore wind, maritime technology, and cybersecurity.
Critical questions hanging in the air
Nevertheless, it is not without problems to build an AI political profile in an arena marked by controversy. Sanjay Kapoor, quoted by The Federal, asks the uncomfortable question: Does India's "democratizing AI" rhetoric risk ending up with the country adopting a US-dominated technology stack that undermines the very data sovereignty India says it wants to protect?
The same question can be asked of Norwegian participation: What is the substance behind the value rhetoric? Norway has not yet presented concrete business agreements or MoUs from the New Delhi delegation. And while Tung talks about children's safety and the misuse of AI tools like Grok, it is unclear whether the Norwegian inputs land in the form of binding international frameworks – or remain well-formulated panel comments.
Heather Broomfield from Digdir emphasized in her introduction that responsible AI development requires openness and democratic decision-making processes "that are not taken over by mechanisms no one has control over" – a sentence that hits just as well as a critique of the summit's own weaknesses as a political vision.
"AI must be inclusive, trust-based" – Karianne Tung at the AI Impact Summit. The question is who sets the standards for what that means.
What Norway can actually bring home
Despite the controversies surrounding the summit, there are real opportunities in the Norwegian-Indian track. Bilateral meetings with France and Germany during the summit expand the network, and Norway's participation in a forum with 20 heads of state provides international visibility that is difficult to obtain in other ways.
For Norwegian companies like Simula Research Laboratory, companies in offshore wind and green technology, or actors in health AI, the combination of the TEPA framework and the political goodwill built in New Delhi is an opening worth taking seriously.
But the Norwegian delegation – and the Norwegian business sector – should read the AI Impact Summit 2026 with open eyes: Both opportunities and contradictions were present in Bharat Mandapam simultaneously. A Chinese robot presented as Indian innovation is not just an embarrassing scandal. It is a sign that the race for AI hegemony is intense, complex, and far from decided – and that Norwegian values of trust and transparency will be put to the test in this landscape.