The India-AI Impact Summit 2026, running from February 16-20 at New Delhi’s iconic Bharat Mandapam, has emerged as a landmark moment in global artificial intelligence discourse. Inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the five-day event is the first global AI summit of its kind hosted by a Global South nation, and it is making that distinction count.
Building on the lineage of the UK’s Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit (2023), the Seoul AI Summit (2024), and France’s AI Action Summit (2025), the India edition marks a decisive shift in emphasis. Where previous summits centred largely on safety and governance, the India-AI Impact Summit is oriented firmly toward real-world deployment, measurable outcomes, and inclusive access, themes that resonate deeply with the developing world.
A Summit of Unprecedented Scale
The numbers alone tell a story of ambition. The summit has drawn participation from over 100 countries, with more than 20 heads of state and government, 60 ministerial delegations, and 500-plus global AI leaders including CEOs, researchers, and philanthropic organizations. Key speakers across the week include Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, and Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani.
Running parallel to the summit, the India AI Impact Expo 2026 has sprawled across 70,000+ square metres and 10 thematic arenas, featuring over 300 exhibitors from 30+ countries and 13 dedicated country pavilions, including Australia, Japan, the UK, France, Germany, and Estonia.
Three Sutras, Seven Chakras
The summit’s thematic architecture is built on three foundational pillars, or “Sutras”, People, Planet, and Progress. Under these pillars, seven “Chakras” translate vision into action: human capital, inclusion, trust, resilience, science, resources, and social good. These themes are designed to channel multilateral collaboration toward tangible, measurable results rather than aspirational declarations.
During the inauguration, PM Modi emphasized that AI must remain anchored in human values, framing India’s approach under the philosophy of Sarvajana Hitaya, Sarvajana Sukhaya, welfare for all, happiness for all. He also announced the creation of a National AI Research Grid to strengthen compute infrastructure and foster collaboration between universities, startups, and public institutions.
From Dialogue to Deployment
A defining feature of this summit has been its focus on transitioning AI from lab-stage experimentation to population-scale deployment. Sessions on Day 2 covered India’s ambitious $200-billion AI investment target, indigenous defence AI technologies, agriculture advisory tools powered by machine learning, and digital governance platforms built for multilingual, diverse populations.
India’s strategy is clear: rather than competing head-to-head with the US or China on frontier model development, the country is betting on application-led innovation, leveraging its massive digital infrastructure and deep talent pool to deploy AI solutions that reach the last mile. This is backed by significant traction: with over 100 million weekly ChatGPT users, India is already OpenAI’s largest user market globally.
The IndiaAI Mission, the government’s flagship initiative, is supporting this vision through subsidized GPU access for startups, indigenous foundation model development by companies like Sarvam AI and Gnani AI, and investment in multilingual language AI through Digital India BHASHINI.
Global Challenges and Youth Innovation
Three flagship Global Impact Challenges, AI for ALL, AI by HER, and YUVAi, have culminated at the summit with grand finale showcases. These challenges targeted scalable AI-for-good solutions, women-led AI innovation, and youth-driven problem-solving (ages 13-21), respectively. The initiatives were implemented in partnership with Startup India, MY Bharat, and NIELIT, reinforcing the summit’s commitment to democratizing AI participation.
A Research Symposium organized with IIT Hyderabad on February 18 received around 250 research submissions from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, featuring discussions on AI-driven scientific discovery, safety frameworks, and equitable compute access across the Global South.
The Bigger Picture
Beyond the technology, the India-AI Impact Summit carries significant geopolitical weight. By positioning itself as a convenor between the data-rich developing world and the capital-rich technology producers, India is asserting that AI governance must not remain an exclusive club shaped only in Washington, Brussels, or Beijing.
Yet challenges remain. The summit has also surfaced candid conversations around AI’s risks, from workforce displacement in India’s $283-billion IT sector to cybersecurity threats, deepfake proliferation, and the ethical complexities of deploying AI at scale in a country where employment is largely informal and social safety nets are uneven.
As the summit enters its final days, with PM Modi set to deliver the Leaders’ Summit address and a joint declaration expected to outline a shared global AI roadmap, one thing is clear: India is no longer just a consumer of AI. It is actively shaping what AI will mean for the world’s next billion users.
