Stools for Pedro Sánchez in New Delhi

The Spanish Prime Minister’s second trip to India this year (after two decades without visits by a Spanish President) confirms a diplomatic intensification that includes previous visits by ministers Albares y Urtasunand coincides with the pending ratification of the EU-India trade agreement.

Sánchez arrived in New Delhi to deny the city to compromise the increase in defense gas required by OTAN, weakening his profile as a strategic partner, but at the same time presenting himself as an impetus for the global conversation on AI.

He announced a tour of Asia (“España looks at itself more than once”) and celebrated in Modi bilateral political and economic relations backed by the promise of a market of more than 2,000 million people.

The speech will list projects in the fields of technology, agriculture and culture and highlight a common voice with greater international resonance. However, the strategic story shocks a persistent fact: the absence of large Spanish corporations in the delegation.

Currently, no major Ibex companies have any family support (doors Begoña Gómez following game request), until startups ministers in the technology and dissemination sector.

It is not anecdotal. In the business sector, you will find uncomfortable reading: agendas with limited commercial returns, an excess of political component and reputational risk that inextricably link the presence of corporations to political polarization.

The result is economic diplomacy with less arresting power. Large strategic contracts are resisted.

The president appears more like an institutional representative than a broker of trade, more like a symbol than a negotiator, just when geo-economic competence calls for density.

India is trying to establish itself as the third global technology hub. France seeks European strategic autonomy. Brazil intends to lead Sur Global digital.

Spain is bound to capture the inversion. The difference in ambition is evident.

Because the fundamental question is not the Indian inversion, but the real meaning of the climate above, where the poles determining the architecture (the United States and China) do not share direct political protagonism. Washington controls the platforms, chips and capital. Beijing dominates scale, industrial planning and speed of deployment.

Europe debates, governs and seeks its own space.

Indian cumber intends to formulate this third way. Forum with international leaders, technologies and organizations who aspires to relevance without being central.

In this photo, they revealed recognizable geopolitical projects: Emmanuel Macron defend European autonomy, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva referring to the global south and technology managers as Bill Gates, Jensen Huang or Sundar Pichai representing the true operating strength of the industry.

Y Pedro Sánchez accompanied by ministers and startupsdesperately aspiring to support the ethical management of the United Nations with its own economic interests.

That picture inevitably reminds me of that Peter Sellers de El guatequea guest who comes when the strategic conversation has started and just sits on the table at the end of the table.

The controversy that surrounded the Spanish embassy in Delhi, Juan Antonio Marchthe host of the delegation, not much help. Appointed in 2024, you will have difficulty with the diplomatic team due to his long time away from active duty and his proximity to Zapatero y Moratinos.

But for the surprising intention of bringing in funds from Spanish and Indian companies to pay for one of his close friend’s concerts, the mezzo-soprano porcelain Huiling Zhuit aims to position the uncomfortable variable of China as a permanent fund telón of contemporary Spanish foreign policy.

The critical rhetoric that President Sánchez espouses with regard to great technologies (“technooligarcas”) has also been well implemented in order to share forums with his top managers. Global AI governance is constructed precisely in this hybrid space between states and corporations. Ignoring is the same as leaving the real conversation.

The call to democratize AI therefore has little substance and credibility. “We’re building AI for good,” he emphasized.

You know, don’t you, President?

New Delhi will not decide where artificial intelligence dominates, but it is revealed to those in the know why paper wants to be abandoned.

Europe has a unique opportunity if it leaves its power complex late. Don’t compete with the United States in capital or China in state planning until you understand the thematic applicability of this technology: interoperable sanitation, automated industry, optimized energy, predictive governance, personalized education, active health.

The terrain from which AI becomes an algorithm and a social organization.

This too should be a natural area of ​​Spain. Not a generic technological node (in our territory increasingly colonized by China), but a laboratory of democratic implementation.

Because the power of the next decade will not remain only in the one who develops new forms of IA, only in this order the life of the rededor of her. This conversation (really strategic) I still hope that someone will feel comfortable at the table with something more than just a stool.