Doha, November 11 (QNA) - The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Switzerland have announced that Geneva will host the Geneva AI Summit in June 2027 as part of a four-day AI Week. The gathering will bring together the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum and the 10th-anniversary edition of the annual AI for Good Global Summit.

The announcement was made during a joint event organized on Wednesday by the ITU and Switzerland on the sidelines of the (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-26).

The event reviewed preparations for the week and highlighted the historic partnership between the two sides, which dates back to 1865 with the founding of the ITU—an organization whose headquarters Geneva has hosted for nearly 160 years—emphasizing its vital role in fostering international cooperation and leveraging advanced technology to serve human societies. Organizers also invited member states and innovators to actively participate in robotics competitions and national innovation exhibitions during this massive global gathering.

In this context, HE Swiss State Secretary René Dönni Kuoni stated that the Geneva AI Summit will be held under the theme "Bridging Innovation and Trust," driven by the conviction that innovation and trust are not mutually exclusive, but rather mutually reinforcing. He noted the summit focuses on two integrated strategic priorities: first, positioning AI as an engine of prosperity and progress for all; and second, promoting the responsible and safe use of AI to foster innovation while establishing the foundation for a wide and beneficial deployment of this technology.

He pointed out that the summit builds upon a trajectory that began in the United Kingdom in 2023 with a focus on the safety and risks of advanced AI, continued in Seoul in 2024 by broadening discussions on safety, innovation, and inclusion, proceeded in Paris in 2025 by exploring AI's opportunities for societies and economies, and culminated in New Delhi in February 2026 with an emphasis on delivering its benefits worldwide.

Kuoni noted that Geneva hosted the United Nations' first Global Dialogue on AI Governance in July to continue discussions on internationally coordinated safeguards capable of keeping pace with the rapid growth of AI capabilities. He stressed that the 2027 Geneva AI Summit aims to unify international efforts, harmonize technological policies, and achieve greater continuity and consistency among the previous three summits, highlighting the city's pivotal role as a global hub for tech governance research and development.

For her part, HE Secretary-General, ITU, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, recalled that Switzerland hosted the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 and has co-organized the AI for Good Summit since 2017—years before AI gained widespread adoption. She noted that this year's Geneva Digital Week will draw nearly 12,000 participants from 167 countries, serving as an indicator of the momentum the 2027 week will carry.

HE Bogdan-Martin emphasized that the simultaneous timing of the three events reflects different dimensions of a single challenge facing nations: how to make innovation inclusive, ensure governance is informed by technological reality, and translate international cooperation into tangible benefits felt by people in their daily lives.

Chairperson of the United Nations AI for Good Impact Initiative, Dr. Ebtesam Al Mazrouei, who leads the team building the open-source "Falcon" model, traced her journey from telecommunications engineering to the development of "NOOR," the largest Arabic language model at its launch in 2022, followed by subsequent advancements that made it available for others to build upon without starting from scratch.

She stressed that releasing models alone is not enough to turn them into useful services, noting that this requires internet connectivity, computing power, and human skills. She highlighted the digital divide, pointing out that roughly two billion people remain offline, with internet penetration reaching 93 percent in high-income countries compared to just 32 percent in low-income nations.

Dr. Al Mazrouei showcased two local solution winners of the "AI for Good Innovation Factory" competition from South Africa and Tanzania, before addressing the energy and computing challenge. Global electricity demand for data centers is projected to nearly double from 485 terawatt-hours in 2025 to 950 terawatt-hours in 2030, and she urged collaboration between the tech and energy sectors by combining the smart use of existing energy grids with investments in reliable sources, such as solar power paired with round-the-clock storage.

While emphasizing that human oversight remains essential, she warned against cyber threats and called for threat intelligence sharing, system testing, and coordinated incident response.

ITU Chief of Strategic Engagement Frédéric Werner highlighted the "AI for Good" platform, noting that it has evolved from an era of experiments and pilot cases in 2017 to widespread AI adoption, even in the Global South.

He cautioned that the most important question is not what AI can do, but what it should do, citing an example of an Estonian startup that developed a technology to detect blood sugar levels from the tone of a voice—a breakthrough that could transform diabetes screening, while simultaneously raising questions about what else such technology might reveal about an individual.

In his closing remarks, Werner predicted that AI will transcend screens through the convergence of small language models, space-based computing, robotics, and quantum computing. (QNA)