India AI Impact Summit 2026 to spotlight democratisation of AI, Global South leadership, and India–France collaboration in emerging technologies.
India is set to host a landmark global gathering on artificial intelligence as French President Emmanuel Macron visits India next week to participate in the India AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled from February 16 to 20 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. During the visit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Macron will jointly launch the India–France Year of Innovation 2026, marking a new chapter in bilateral cooperation across AI, deep tech, research, and innovation.
The India AI Impact Summit 2026, the first global AI summit hosted in the Global South, positions India as a leading voice in shaping inclusive, people-centric, and sustainable AI governance. Anchored on the three core pillars—People, Planet, and Progress—the summit will bring together global leaders, policymakers, technology companies, startups, researchers, and civil society to deliberate on how AI can drive equitable growth and public good at scale.
Democratisation of AI at the Core
At the heart of the summit is India’s vision of democratising AI—ensuring affordable access to compute power, high-quality datasets, and AI models for startups, researchers, public institutions, and innovators nationwide. This approach mirrors India’s earlier digital successes such as Aadhaar, UPI, and indigenous 4G/5G stacks, and aligns with the national goal of Viksit Bharat 2047.
India’s AI ecosystem already supports over six million jobs, with AI projected to empower nearly 490 million informal workers, according to NITI Aayog. Platforms like BHASHINI, which enables multilingual AI services across 36+ Indian languages, and AI-driven applications in agriculture, healthcare, disaster management, and governance, demonstrate AI’s population-scale impact.
Building AI Infrastructure at Scale
The summit builds on the momentum of the IndiaAI Mission, approved with an outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore, which is expanding access to affordable compute, datasets, and responsible AI frameworks. India has onboarded 38,000+ high-end GPUs at globally competitive rates, deployed 40+ petaflops of supercomputing capacity, and strengthened its semiconductor and data centre ecosystem to support AI-led growth.
India–France Strategic Alignment
President Macron’s visit underscores the growing strategic convergence between India and France in emerging and critical technologies. Under the Horizon 2047 Roadmap, both leaders will deepen cooperation in AI, innovation, and the Indo-Pacific. The India–France Year of Innovation 2026, to be celebrated across both countries, will promote joint research, startup collaboration, technology exchange, and people-to-people ties.
As India hosts the AI Impact Summit 2026, it offers a Global South–led blueprint for inclusive, sovereign, and sustainable AI development, reinforcing its role as a global hub for responsible AI innovation.
