{"id":23957,"date":"2026-02-19T08:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T06:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/india-ai-summit-stumbles-as-bill-gates-pulls-out-chaos-mounts\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:41","slug":"india-ai-summit-stumbles-as-bill-gates-pulls-out-chaos-mounts","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/india-ai-summit-stumbles-as-bill-gates-pulls-out-chaos-mounts\/","title":{"rendered":"India AI summit stumbles as Bill Gates pulls out, chaos mounts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Gates&#8217; absence, followed by another high-profile cancellation by Nvidia&#8217;s Jensen Huang, adds to a difficult opening for a summit billed as the first major artificial intelligence forum in the Global South, where India has sought to position itself as a leading voice in worldwide AI governance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_elementtoproof\">The Gates Foundation said the billionaire will not deliver his address &#8220;to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit&#8217;s key priorities&#8221;. Only days ago, the foundation had dismissed rumours of his absence and insisted he was on track to attend. Gates&#8217; cancellation comes after the United States Department of Justice released emails last month that included communication between late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the Gates Foundation&#8217;s staff. Gates has said the relationship was confined to philanthropy-related discussions and that it was a mistake for him to meet Epstein.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_elementtoproof\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23521,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-23957","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Bill Gates has pulled out of India's AI Impact Summit, just hours before his scheduled keynote address on Thursday, dealing another blow to a flagship event already marred by organisational lapses, a robot row and delegate complaints over traffic disruptions","published_date":"2026-02-19 00:00:00","news_description":"Bill Gates has pulled out of India's AI Impact Summit, just hours before his scheduled keynote address on Thursday, dealing another blow to a flagship event already marred by organisational lapses, a robot row and delegate complaints over traffic disruptionss","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26777,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23957\/revisions\/26777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}