Sam Altman (seated on top right end), CEO of OpenAI, arrives to speak at a UN Security Council meeting on Artificial Intelligence during the 81st United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Headquarters, NY, September 23, 2026. (Photo by Anthony Behar/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)
While governments in the United States and Europe debate how to regulate and slow the development of frontier AI, countries across the rest of the world are approaching the question differently.
At the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week last week, governments called for a greater role in shaping AI rules, expanding access to AI capacity and ensuring that efforts to make AI safer do not deepen existing technological divides. Pakistan, for example, backed calls to pace frontier AI while warning that “pacing must not become a new form of gatekeeping.”
Here is how governments outside the Western AI powers and China approached AI governance during UNGA.
UNGA 81 · General Debate
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan · President · Sept. 22
Called for a UN convention.
“It is long overdue now to establish a common international legal framework for AI,” Erdoğan said, urging countries to move faster toward a UN International Convention on Artificial Intelligence.
Lee Jae Myung · President · Sept. 22
Proposed a “Global AI Universal Basic Society.”
Lee framed the idea as part of his K-Initiative, ensuring people could benefit from technological progress through AI-based healthcare, social security, labor, housing and culture. He also proposed a Global AI Hub to ensure “no country or individual is excluded from the fundamental benefits of AI.”
Takaichi Sanae · Prime Minister · Sept. 22
Pointed to existing international rules.
Takaichi highlighted the Hiroshima AI Process, which Japan launched with other governments to develop international principles and a code of conduct for generative AI. She also said Japan intends to host an AI Summit “at the earliest opportunity.”
Mia Mottley · Prime Minister · Sept. 24
Said every state should have a say.
AI is, Mottley said, “a technology that will affect every State” and therefore “must be governed by rules that every State has had the opportunity to shape.”
Judith Suminwa Tuluka · Prime Minister · Sept. 23
Linked AI to the digital divide.
“The digital divide cannot become an intelligence divide,” Suminwa said. She backed the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance and a proposed capacity-building fund, and linked AI infrastructure to critical minerals, including cobalt.
Ronald Lamola · Minister of International Relations and Cooperation · Sept. 24
Called for an African role in setting the rules.
“Africa must have a stake in shaping the rules that govern the development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence,” Lamola said. He tied the issue to Africa's critical-mineral resources and the need for greater beneficiation and technological development on the continent.
Tarique Rahman · Prime Minister · Sept. 24
Warned about an AI divide.
“We do not want today's digital divide to become tomorrow's artificial intelligence divide,” Rahman said, calling for technology transfer, skills development and affordable access to modern technologies for developing countries.
Kashim Shettima · Vice President · Sept. 24
Pushed back against a risk-first approach.
Delivering President Bola Tinubu's statement, Shettima said: “We refuse to surrender our technological future to paranoia.” AI could be used “to wage war,” he added, but also “to transform healthcare, education, agriculture, governance and economic productivity.”
Mohammad Ishaq Dar · Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister · Sept. 23
Took a middle position on slowing AI.
Dar said Pakistan takes calls to pace frontier AI seriously, while warning that slowing AI development should not become a way for a small number of countries or companies to control access to the technology. “Pacing must not become a new form of gatekeeping,” he said.
Javier Milei · President · Sept. 23
Argued against preemptive regulation.
Milei said giving governments control over AI innovation meant “granting some people … the power to limit what everyone else can create.” Argentina's approach would include “the commitment to not regulate preemptively, limited liability for companies operating with AI agents and tax incentives.”
S. Jaishankar · External Affairs Minister · Sept. 2026
Emphasized national AI ecosystems.
“We believe in the right of each nation to shape its ecosystem with the development of its own models and deployment strategies consistent with its national goals and priorities,” Jaishankar said. “AI will be very much part of our partnership agenda with the global South.”
Key initiatives launched and forward commitments
Statements from the 81st session are indexed by country at gadebate.un.org.
