A summit or summit meeting is an international meeting of heads of state or government, usually with considerable media exposure, tight security, and a prearranged agenda.
Notable summit meetings include those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin during World War II, although the term summit was not commonly used for such meetings until the 1955 Geneva Summit. Following World War II, the Cold War saw American presidents join up with either Soviet or Chinese leaders for one-on-one meetings, which saw the media label these events off as a summit. The post–Cold War era has produced an increase in the number of events described as summits. Since then, international summits are now the most common expression for global governance. Summit diplomacy fosters interpersonal trust between leaders and reinforces system trust in the state-as-person construct, which is identified as the implicit glue holding the international system together.
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Notable summits
G–summits
Group of Six (G6), heads of government
1975 – 1st G6 summit, Château de Rambouillet
Group of Seven (G7), heads of government
Group of Eight (G8), heads of government
Group of Seven (G7), heads of government
Group of Twenty (G20), heads of government
European Union–African Union Summits
2000 – 1st European Union–African Union Summit
2007 – 2nd European Union–African Union Summit
2010 – 3rd European Union–African Union Summit
2014 – 4th European Union–African Union Summit
2017 – 5th European Union–African Union Summit
2022 – 6th European Union–African Union Summit
2025 – 7th European Union–African Union Summit
Global AI Summit series
2023 – AI Safety Summit 2023, United Kingdom
2024 – AI Seoul Summit 2024, South Korea
2025 – AI Action Summit 2025, France
2026 – India AI Impact Summit 2026, India