India pushes 'All-Inclusive Intelligence' vision for AI healthcare, Nadda says at WHO meet

India’s Health Minister J P Nadda presented the country’s approach to AI in healthcare at the 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva on May 19, framing it as 'All-Inclusive Intelligence' rather than just 'Artificial Intelligence.' The vision prioritizes ethical oversight, equitable access, and strong regulation to ensure AI benefits reach all citizens, particularly in a system serving 1.4 billion people across 22 languages with uneven healthcare access. Nadda warned that unchecked AI deployment could deepen inequality, despite its potential to bridge gaps in healthcare delivery. He cited India’s Digital India initiative, launched in 2015, as a foundation for expanding AI’s reach across diverse populations. The minister unveiled the Strategy for AI in Healthcare for India (SAHI), introduced at the India AI Impact Summit in February 2026, as the first framework of its kind from the Global South. SAHI aims to guide ethical and transparent AI use in health systems, ensuring alignment with public good. To enforce these standards, India has developed the Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI (BODH), which tests AI systems against real-world datasets. This platform ensures safety, fairness, and reliability in AI applications for healthcare. Nadda stressed that the future of AI depends on collective efforts to build ethical, human-centric systems. His remarks underscored India’s commitment to balancing innovation with safeguards, particularly in a healthcare landscape marked by linguistic and infrastructural diversity.