THE advent of artificial intelligence marks a consequential inflection point in the trajectory of technological evolution. With AI-powered capabilities now available in the palms of our hand, breakthroughs across sectors are reshaping how societies function, economies grow and governments deliver services. The world that AI is enabling will be markedly different from what we have known so far. The choices made over the coming years will determine whether artificial intelligence deepens existing structural divides or becomes a tool for broad-based and inclusive progress.
It is in this context that India is going to host the largest global AI gathering to date — the India AI Impact Summit, scheduled from February 16–20, 2026, in New Delhi. Anticipated to be the most expansive of the four global AI summits held thus far, the event has already attracted unprecedented international interest. Participation is expected from more than 100 countries, including nearly 20 heads of government, over 50 ministers and more than 40 CEOs of leading global and Indian companies. The summit reflects India’s positioning at the forefront of global AI discourse and also an endorsement of India’s advocacy for a responsible, inclusive and impact-driven artificial intelligence.
Highlighting the depth and diversity of engagement, the summit will feature a showcase of over 500 AI start-ups and host approximately 500 sessions, making it one of the most comprehensive global convenings on artificial intelligence to date.
Yet the significance of the summit lies not merely in its scale, but in the values it seeks to advance. The true value of artificial intelligence must ultimately be measured by its impact on people, the planet and long-term progress. Guided by the principle of ‘Sarvjan Hitay, Sarvjan Sukhay’ — the welfare and happiness of all — the India AI Impact Summit seeks to frame AI as a tool whose promise is realised only when its benefits are shared by all and not just a few. Achieving this requires approaching AI through the lens of comparative strengths, capabilities and developmental needs, rather than through a one-size-fits-all technological paradigm.
The India AI story
INDIA enters the AI era with a set of notable strengths. It ranks among the world’s leading contributors to global AI research output and possesses a deep pool of technical talent across the artificial intelligence ecosystem. With one of the most AI-literate labour forces globally — second only to the United States — India is well positioned not only to adopt AI technologies, but also to shape their development.
Beyond talent, India holds a significant comparative advantage in data. Its scale and heterogeneity enable the creation of rich, context-specific datasets across sectors such as health, agriculture, finance, education and governance. These attributes provide a strong foundation for building AI systems that are relevant, resilient and grounded in real-world conditions.
Building on these strengths, India has adopted a distinctive bottom-up approach to AI development. This approach is characterised by distributed innovation across firms and sectors, strong state coordination and a careful emphasis on application-specific, small-scale models tailored to specific sectoral needs. Such models are more computationally efficient, easier to fine-tune and capable of operating on locally available hardware such as smartphones or personal computers. This decentralised computing paradigm enables AI capabilities to spread widely without requiring a proportional expansion of resource, energy and capital-intensive data centres — thereby democratising access to
AI services
ACROSS India, local innovators, municipal bodies, start-ups and community institutions are already deploying AI to address challenges that are immediate and contextual. In southern India, non-invasive AI-enabled thermal imaging tools are enabling early breast cancer screening in low-resource settings. In the Himalayan region, indigenous sensor networks combined with machine-learning models are providing real-time landslide alerts across vulnerable slopes. Meanwhile, AI-enabled agricultural networks have improved market access, price discovery and logistical efficiency for over 1.8 million farmers across 12 Indian states.
Beyond sectoral applications, India’s AI ecosystem is also shaped by foundational initiatives aimed at inclusion. Platforms such as Bhashini, led by India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and AI4Bharat at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, are extending the reach of digital services through language- and voice-first AI systems. By enabling interaction in native languages and functioning effectively on low-cost devices, these initiatives demonstrate how scale and inclusion can advance together.
Future AI discourse for global south
AS ARTIFICIAL intelligence reshapes the foundations of economies and societies, the central question before the global community is not whether AI will transform the world, but whether it will do so in a manner that is inclusive, responsible and humane. The India AI Impact Summit, 2026 seeks to advance precisely this conversation — one that places people at the centre of technological change and measures success not by capability alone, but by impact.
For countries such as Bangladesh — where digital transformation is increasingly influencing manufacturing, logistics, public service delivery, healthcare and disaster resilience — this approach holds particular relevance. India’s emphasis on affordable, application-specific AI, language accessibility and decentralised deployment closely mirrors the realities faced by many emerging economies. The India AI Impact Summit therefore offers a platform for Bangladesh and the wider Global South to engage in shaping an AI future that is not only technologically advanced, but also equitable, trusted and firmly anchored in shared progress.
Pranay Verma is the high commissioner of India to Bangladesh.
