After months of promotion as India’s flagship artificial intelligence event, the five-day AI Impact Summit took off early this week, Monday, 16 February, 2026, amidst high-profile fanfare, global reckoning, and a few twists and turns. Inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the event drew overwhelming numbers of visitors packing event venue Bharat Mandapam to capacity.
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The widely publicised pre-event programmes organized by the authorities across the country and abroad in the run-up to the prestigiously branded ‘first global south’ event, have borne fruits with nearly every accessible part of the sprawling 100-acre complex getting filled with attendees.
So much so that there were complaints that most delegates, including the participating VIPs could not gain access to their partaking facilities owing to the exodus of visitors- even as over a dozen panel discussion venues were left with standing rooms.
The event is characterized by more than one unique features:
- The 100-acre Bharat Madapam complex brimmed with visitors reportedly over 2.5 lakh registered visitors
- The Summit brought together global technology firms, start-ups, academia, research institutions, Union Ministries, State Governments and international partners
- It features 13 country pavilions representing Australia, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Serbia, Estonia, Tajikistan and Africa, underscoring the global nature of AI collaboration
- The summit was also addressed by French President Emmanuel Macron, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres
- The other high-profile attendees included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
- An AI Expo, being held alongside the Summit, spread across 10 arenas covering over 70,000 square metres, features over 300 curated exhibition pavilions and live demonstrations structured around three thematic ‘chakras’ – People, Planet and Progress – reflecting India’s vision of technology serving humanity and sustainable development
- The programming comprises over 600 high-potential start-ups, many of them presenting globally relevant and population-scale solutions already deployed in real-world settings
- Over the five days, the Summit will host over 500 sessions featuring over 3,250 speakers and panelists from across sectors
Landmark developments
The Summit saw some far-reaching developments attracting huge investments from both Indian and foreign technology giants and business conglomerates.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the company will collaborate with India’s Tata Group on AI initiatives, including the development of data center infrastructure in the country.
Reliance Industries announced it will invest $109.8 billion over the next seven years along with its telecom arm Jio to build AI and data infrastructure, while Adani Group announced investment of US$100 billion towards building AI data centres through 2030. According to the group, this investment is hoped to trigger an additional $150 billion across related industries, including server manufacturing and sovereign cloud platforms.
Microsoft announced an investment of US$50 billion by the end of the decade to help expand AI to countries across the ‘Global South.’ The company had already unveiled $17.5 billion worth of AI investments in India last year.
Yotta Data Services too announced it will build one of Asia’s largest AI computing hubs using Nvidia’s latest Blackwell Ultra chips, in a project costing more than $2 billion.
