Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda addressed the side event on “Artificial Intelligence in Health: Laws, Ethical Oversight, Research and Equity” during the 79th World Health Assembly, Geneva.
Addressing the distinguished gathering of global leaders, delegates, experts and policymakers, Shri Nadda highlighted the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in reshaping healthcare systems, governance frameworks, economies and the lives of citizens across the world.
He emphasized that while AI presents immense opportunities for advancing healthcare delivery, it must be “shaped by sound regulation, rigorous research, ethical oversight, and a deep commitment to equity so its benefits reach every citizen”.
The Union Health Minister stated that India had laid a strong digital foundation over a decade ago under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi through the launch of the Digital India initiative in 2015. He noted that the initiative aimed to “transform India into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy, preparing India for future technologies, including AI.”
Shri Nadda further underlined that India’s National Health Policy of 2017 envisioned an integrated, interoperable, inclusive and scalable digital health ecosystem. Building upon this vision, the Government launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission in 2021 along with consent-based digital health data frameworks, enabling the creation of quality health data.
The Union Health Minister stressed that digitization and data alone are insufficient to achieve better health outcomes and that sector-specific governance frameworks are essential for safe and responsible deployment of AI. In this context, he highlighted the launch of the Strategy for AI in Healthcare for India (SAHI) during the India AI Impact Summit in February 2026.
He described SAHI as “the first comprehensive strategy emerging from the Global South, guiding India’s healthcare journey in an ethical, transparent and people-centric manner.” Highlighting India’s unique scale and diversity, the Union Minister noted that the country is governing AI for 1.4 billion citizens across 22 official languages and varying levels of healthcare access.
He cautioned that while AI has the potential to bridge healthcare gaps, it could also deepen inequities if not designed responsibly. To address this challenge, Shri Nadda spoke about the creation of BODH – Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI – which ensures that AI solutions deployed in India are benchmarked against real-world datasets so that they perform safely and equitably for every Indian everywhere.
Calling for greater international collaboration, the Union Health Minister stated that no country can address the challenges and opportunities of AI in isolation. He emphasized India’s commitment to working with global partners to strengthen trusted and interoperable health data ecosystems, promote collaborative research, advance ethical AI development and collectively address shared healthcare challenges.
Shri Nadda emphasized that innovation must be guided by regulation, scale must be earned through trust and technological advancement must remain anchored in equity, ethics and public good. Concluding his address, the Union Health Minister remarked that the future of AI in healthcare would not be written by algorithms alone, but by the collective choices of governments, institutions and societies.
Referring to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision, he stated that India believes not merely in “Artificial Intelligence” but in “All-Inclusive Intelligence,” and called upon the global community to ensure that AI becomes a force for global good.