AI IMPACT SUMMIT 2026
SHAPING AI FOR HUMANITY,INCLUSIVE GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
AI IMPACT SUMMIT-
The AI Impact Summit, formally the India AI Impact Summit 2026, is an international summit on artificial intelligence held at Bharat Mandapam,New Delhi, India, from 16 to 21 February 2026.It is the fourth in a series of global AI summits following the Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit in 2023, the AI Seoul Summit in 2024, and the AI Action Summit in Paris in 2025.Organised under the IndiaAI Mission by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, it is the first summit in the series to be hosted by a Global South nation.
According to Crowell & Moring, the changing summit titles seem to reflect a broader shift in focus away from AI safety and governance toward practical impact, implementation, and measurable outcomes.
PROGRAMME-
The summit ran over five days, later extended to six following overwhelming public response.Originally scheduled to conclude on 20 February, the event was extended to 21 February with expanded evening hours for the exhibition.
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.Pavilions were organised across thematic zones aligned with the summit's three pillars, showcasing AI applications in healthcare, agriculture, education, and sustainable industry.
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.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.
Research Symposium:
A Research Symposium on AI and its Impact was held on 18 February, with the IIT Hyderabad as knowledge partner. Discussions covered sovereign AI infrastructure, global adoption challenges, research breakthroughs, and policy priorities
PARTICIPANTS-
The summit drew delegations from over 100 countries, including more than 20 heads of state and 60 ministers. Notable attendees from the technology industry included Sundar Pichai (Google), Sam Altman (OpenAI), Dario Amodei (Anthropic), Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind), and Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries).Representatives from multilateral institutions included Sangbu Kim of the World Bank.
ANNOUNCED OUTCOMES-
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(LLMs), including 30-billion and 105-billion parameter models using a mixture of experts (MoE) architecture, as well as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and vision models.Sarvam also introduced the Kaze smartglasses, described as the company's first hardware product, which Prime Minister Modi tested at the expo.
Gnani.ai, a Bengaluru-based startup, unveiled Vachana TTS, a text-to-speech model capable of cloning human voices across 12 Indian languages under just 10 seconds of reference audio. The government-backed BharatGen Param2 model, a 17-billion parameter model supporting 22 Indian languages with multimodal capabilities, was also launched at the summit.
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.The government announced plans to add more than 20,000 GPUs to India's existing base of 38,000 under the IndiaAI Compute Portal.
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.The campaign, conducted in partnership with Intel India as part of the IndiaAI Mission, exceeded its initial target of 5,000 pledges.
SUMMIT SERIES-
Year Name Location Host
2023 AI Safety Summit Bletchley Park United Kingdom
2024 AI Seoul Summit Seoul South Korea
2025 AI Action Summit Paris France
2026 AI Impact Summit New Delhi India
2027 AI Impact Summit Geneva Switzerland
AI IMPACT SUMMIT 2026 Bharat Mandapam,New Delhi,India