AI guardrails vs innovation: What India and the Global South need as frontier AI races ahead

India's AI policy challenge extends beyond regulation, with questions around child safety, data ownership, digital public infrastructure and access to frontier technology. Athena Infonomics' Deepa Karthykeyan and APLYD's Nakul Jain discuss how emerging economies can build safeguards while retaining flexibility over AI models, hardware and cloud platforms, and continue developing their capabilities without falling behind technologically.