Tech executives and heads of state have converged on India’s capital this week as the India AI Impact Summit 2026 opened on 16 February in New Delhi, marking the first major global tech summit hosted in the Global South.
Executives from the world’s largest technology companies convened at Bharat Mandapam, signalling a new phase in industry collaboration focused on artificial intelligence. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis are among those expected to take part.
Leaders are not gathering for optics alone. The summit has been organised around three pillars — People, Planet, and Progress — with more than 40 CEOs and 20 heads of state expected and up to $100 billion in investment commitments anticipated across the week.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the main plenary on 19 February and is meeting 35-40 global CEOs on the sidelines.
Confirmed attendees reflect the breadth of the summit’s agenda and the global balance of AI power:
- Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google & Alphabet
- Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI
- Mukesh D Ambani, Chairman & MD, Reliance Industries
- Bill Gates, Chair, Gates Foundation
- Sir Demis Hassabis, Co-founder & CEO, Google DeepMind
- Yann LeCun, Professor, NYU & Exec Chairman, AMI Labs
- …and leaders from Qualcomm, Microsoft, Salesforce, Adobe, Ericsson and more.
India’s strategic position in the AI economy gives context to why this summit matters. The country accounts for nearly 20 per cent of the world’s data, hosts the second-largest AI workforce globally, and has over 700 million internet users — metrics that place it at the centre of future AI markets.
Microsoft has already pledged $17.5 billion over four years to expand AI infrastructure in India, its largest Asia investment to date, signalling how corporate strategy now mirrors policy priorities in a major economy.
The summit also includes a sprawling expo with over 300 exhibitors from 30 countries, and innovation challenges timed with crore-level prizes, emphasising both commercial and societal impact.
Author: Pishon Yip