South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called for greater technological, financial and medical sovereignty for the Global South during the closing session of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi on Sunday.

Putting artificial intelligence at the heart of his address, Ramaphosa backed greater sovereign AI capacity for developing economies and supported China's proposal for a BRICS AI ecosystem.

"We must never reach a situation where technological capability has moved beyond our capacity to understand it, supervise it and control it. South Africa accordingly proposes that BRICS should establish an international mechanism for the independent scientific evaluation of AI," he noted.

"Our responsibility is to ensure that human governance advances as rapidly as artificial intelligence itself," the president continued.

Ramaphosa also called for greater use of local currencies within BRICS and stronger medical sovereignty across the Global South, including vaccine development, genomic surveillance and diagnostic capabilities.

"Our engagement with partner countries should spur deeper cooperation, particularly in public health, education, science and technology," Ramaphosa added.

India is hosting the September 12-13 summit under its 2026 BRICS chairship, with Global South cooperation, economic resilience and reform of global governance high on the agenda.