India AI Impact Summit 2026

India AI Impact Expo

The India AI Impact Expo, inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi on 16 February, featured over 300 exhibitors from 30 countries across more than 10 thematic pavilions.^[19] Pavilions were organised across thematic zones aligned with the summit's three pillars, showcasing AI applications in healthcare, agriculture, education, and sustainable industry.^[2]

Leaders' Plenary and CEO Roundtable

The Leaders' Plenary on 19 February brought together heads of state, ministers, and representatives from multilateral institutions to outline national and global priorities on AI governance, infrastructure, and international cooperation.^[6] A CEO Roundtable, held the same evening, convened senior executives from global technology and industry firms with government leaders to discuss investment, research collaboration, and deployment of AI systems.^[6]

Research Symposium

A Research Symposium on AI and its Impact was held on 18 February, with the IIIT Hyderabad as knowledge partner. Discussions covered sovereign AI infrastructure, global adoption challenges, research breakthroughs, and policy priorities.^[20]

Indian AI models

Several Indian AI models and products were unveiled during the summit. Sarvam AI, an Indian AI laboratory, launched a new generation of large language models, including 30-billion and 105-billion parameter models using a mixture of experts architecture, as well as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and vision models.^[22] Sarvam also introduced the Kaze smartglasses, described as the company's first hardware product, which Prime Minister Modi tested at the expo.^[23]

The government-backed BharatGen Param2 model, a 17-billion parameter model supporting 22 Indian languages with multimodal capabilities, was also launched at the summit.^[24]

Infrastructure commitments

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw outlined India's "whole-of-nation" AI strategy, describing plans to build a "frugal, sovereign and scalable" AI ecosystem.^[25] The government announced plans to add more than 20,000 GPUs to India's existing base of 38,000 under the IndiaAI Compute Portal.^[24]

Microsoft announced at the summit that it was on track to invest US$50 billion by the end of the decade to bring AI to lower-income countries.^[26]

Goa reaffirmed its commitment to artificial intelligence at the India AI Impact Summit 2026.^[27]

Guinness World Record

During the summit, India set a Guinness World Record for the most pledges received for an AI responsibility campaign in 24 hours, with 250,946 valid pledges collected between 16 and 17 February 2026.^[28] The campaign, conducted in partnership with Intel India as part of the IndiaAI Mission, exceeded its initial target of 5,000 pledges.^[29]

Galgotias University incident

On 18 February, Galgotias University faced widespread criticism after a representative presented a robot dog at the university's exhibition pavilion as an indigenous development. Social media users identified the robot as the Unitree Go2, a commercially available product manufactured by Chinese company Unitree Robotics.^[30][31] IT Secretary S. Krishnan stated that the government did not want exhibitors to showcase items that were not their own, and the university was directed to vacate its stall.^[11] Galgotias University issued an apology, stating that the representative had been "ill-informed" and was not authorised to speak to the press.^[32]

The incident drew political reactions, with the Indian National Congress using it to criticise the government.^[30] The controversy was amplified after Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had earlier shared a video clip of the robot on social media, which was subsequently deleted.^[31]

Organisational issues

On day 1 of the Summit, Dhananjay Yadav, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur had alleged that his product was stolen in the Summit. He called it as a pain for the people in an X post. He further wrote, "Think about this: We paid for flights, accommodation, logistics and even the booth. Only to see our wearables disappear inside a high-security zone".^[33] Later, the stolen devices were recovered by The Delhi Police.^[34]

Bloomberg reported that delegates were left stranded without food or water during a security lockdown ahead of the Prime Minister's visit on 19 February.^[9] The summit venue was closed to the public on 19 February for the Prime Minister's visit, leading to criticism from attendees who had registered for that day.^[35]

Protests by the Indian Youth Congress (IYC)

On 20 February, some members of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) carried out protests inside the venue with slogans such as "PM is compromised" and the criticism of the recent trade deal between India and the US. 4 of these members were sent to police custody by the court on 22 February.^[36] While Bharatiya Janta Party condemned these protests, with its spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla saying, "From being anti-BJP, you have gone to being anti-national? If you have a problem with the BJP, then protest at the BJP office, Jantar Mantar, or outside the PM's office. But the people of the country and their alliance partners condemn them for their attempt to defame India in front of the entire world at the AI Summit."^[37] Congress leader Harish Rawat defended the protests, saying "it's also a fact that AI might become a tool in the hands of a few individuals… It's the opposition's job to warn against that… It's not the first time such international events have been opposed. I know how the BJP protested during the Commonwealth Games… To say that such opposition has happened for the first time is not correct. The BJP has been doing this while in the opposition."^[38]

These protestors were granted bail by the Delhi high court on 2 March.^[39]