India joins global push for safe AI in healthcare

India has joined the HealthAI Global Regulatory Network (GRN) as a pioneer member, marking a significant step in its efforts to ensure the safe, effective, and ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare. HealthAI, the Global Agency for Responsible AI in Health, hailed India’s inclusion as a critical milestone in its mission to strengthen international cooperation around responsible AI governance in health systems.

The agreement launches a new collaboration between India and HealthAI, focused on sharing safety protocols, clinical monitoring practices, and regulatory insights to accelerate the global adoption of trustworthy AI in healthcare.

India will be represented by the Indian Council of Medical Research – National Institute for Research in Digital Health and Data Science (ICMR-NIRDHDS) and IndiaAI. These agencies will work alongside regulatory counterparts from countries like the United Kingdom and Singapore to shape global standards, monitor AI performance in clinical settings, and contribute to developing safe and equitable digital health technologies.

This partnership positions India as a global leader in digital health and responsible AI deployment, enabling it to contribute its technical expertise to the evolving global regulatory landscape. As AI tools become increasingly embedded in healthcare delivery, ensuring their safety, equity, and effectiveness has become urgent.

“Through this collaboration with HealthAI, we are fostering cross-disciplinary engagement and strengthening data-driven practice. Together, we aim to enhance the safety, effectiveness and accessibility of AI in health,” Mona Duggal, director of ICMR-NIRDHDS, said in a statement.

“The country’s vast healthcare experience and commitment to digital innovation will provide valuable insights as we work together to create global networks that aim to ensure AI-driven benefits reach patients safely and effectively. We welcome India as a founding pioneer country and look forward to the expertise they bring to this important collaboration,” stated Ricardo Baptista Leite, chief executive of HealthAI.

According to the statement, members of the HealthAI network will receive technical support, contribute to international best practices, and gain access to a global registry of AI health tools. The initiative aims to balance innovation and core values such as patient safety, data privacy, and equity in care.

HealthAI plans to expand support for pioneer countries through stakeholder engagement, knowledge-sharing initiatives, and regulatory collaboration, laying the groundwork for a trusted, globally connected framework for AI oversight in healthcare, particularly across Asia and other rapidly evolving regions.

“India’s national strategy for AI is designed to position the country as a global AI workforce while leveraging AI for public services, value creation, startup support and job creation. To achieve this, we work closely with academia, researchers, startups and entrepreneurs to identify key gaps ranging from compute capacity and Indian foundation models to datasets, skilling and safe and trusted AI tools,” said Kavita Bhatia, chief operating officer (COO) at IndiaAI.

HealthAI GRN unites nations to regulate AI in healthcare

The HealthAI GRN is a newly established international platform uniting health regulators to improve oversight of AI technologies in medicine. Its goals include building public trust, enhancing safety, and accelerating responsible AI innovation through shared standards, early risk detection, and global collaboration. Ten pioneer countries are being onboarded to co-develop and shape the network from the ground up.

“The HealthAI Global Regulatory Network (GRN) is not simply another addition to the alphabet soup of international AI initiatives. In fact, it is a targeted, sector-specific intervention that addresses one of the most sensitive and high-stakes domains of AI: healthcare,” pointed out Raj Kapoor, chairman of India AI Alliance.

“Unlike broader governance frameworks such as the EU AI Act or the OECD AI Principles, which often remain at the level of general ethical commitments, the GRN is focused on the translation of principles into practice, with an emphasis on clinical safety, regulatory harmonisation, and real-world monitoring,” Kapoor told CoinGeek.

What sets GRN apart is its inclusive governance model. Emerging economies like India are not relegated to passive rule-takers; instead, they actively help shape the standards, correcting the imbalance of Global North-dominated frameworks.

Kapoor pointed out that the GRN urgently fills a critical implementation gap in healthcare AI, where mistakes are not just costly but can mean the difference between life and death. It establishes concrete protocols and validation pathways to ensure AI tools are innovative, safe, effective, and accountable.

Equally vital, GRN drives cross-border trust and interoperability. In a world where AI-driven diagnostic tools are rapidly proliferating, it enables swift recognition across jurisdictions, transforming isolated regulatory approvals into a globally connected system and accelerating responsible adoption worldwide.

“That said, its value will ultimately depend on execution. If the GRN remains a forum for dialogue without enforceable outputs, it risks becoming another well-meaning but ineffectual initiative. However, if it delivers practical regulatory toolkits, enforceable guidelines, and shared clinical monitoring systems, it could become the cornerstone of responsible AI governance in global health. In this sense, HealthAI’s GRN is a potential differentiator, precisely because it is narrow in scope, high in impact, and anchored in the urgent need for trustworthy healthcare AI,” Kapoor added.

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India’s HealthAI entry fast-tracks AI oversight reforms

India’s participation in the HealthAI Global Regulatory Network marks a pivotal turning point in its healthcare AI journey. While the country’s innovation landscape—particularly in diagnostics, imaging, and predictive analytics—is advancing rapidly, governance has struggled to keep pace. This imbalance risks undermining both patient safety and long-term scalability. By joining HealthAI, India gains immediate access to a global infrastructure of safety standards, clinical oversight mechanisms, and proven regulatory models, leapfrogging years of fragmented policy development.

This agreement delivers three urgent and strategic benefits. First, it enables regulatory alignment with global standards, allowing Indian-developed AI tools to build public trust at home while opening pathways for international adoption. Second, it fosters deep knowledge exchange and collaborative validation, reducing redundancy and fast-tracking safe integration of AI into India’s hospitals and health systems. Third, it gives India real influence: rather than reacting to frameworks set elsewhere, it now has a seat at the table to shape rules that reflect the needs and realities of emerging markets.

“From an economic perspective, this alignment strengthens India’s position as a global hub for affordable AI-driven healthcare solutions, capable of scaling innovations both domestically and across the Global South,” Kapoor of India AI Alliance informed.

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