New Delhi: India has taken strong steps towards leveraging the power of artificial intelligence in different sectors such as finance, governance or public service, healthcare, agriculture, defense and so on in the last few years, and with the country playing host to the India-AI Impact Summit 2026, which is scheduled between Feb 16 – 20 in the national capital, the whole discussion is expected to enter a new level.
The government projections indicate that AI can add approximately USD 1.7 trillion to India’s economy by 2035. It is supported by forerunner schemes such as ‘IndiaAI Mission’ consisting of a budget of Rs 10,371.92 core focusing on democratising computing power, developing indigenous Large Multimodal Models (LMMs), and fostering startups.
This vision of democratising the AI-led growth is expected to get a big boost and a new direction at the ‘India-AI Impact Summit 2026’, the industry watchers say.
The India-AI Impact Summit is the first of its kind platform happening in global south, largely inspired by the ‘Paris AI Action Summit (held in Feb 2025).’
The Summit is envisioned as a pivotal global platform to shape a future-oriented agenda for inclusive, responsible, and impactful AI.
It aims to move beyond high-level discussions and deliver tangible outcomes that can support economic growth, social development, and sustainable use of AI.
India-AI Impact Summit 2026 has three main core pillars: (i)People, (ii) Planet, and (iii) Progress. Deliberations are scheduled to happen on employment and skilling, sustainable and energy-efficient AI, and economic as well as social development.
The summit provides a platform for collective engagement, bringing together 15-20 heads of government, more than 50 international ministers, and over 100 global and Indian CXOs.
Deliberations of this power-packed event are organised through Chakras, or Working around seven interconnected thematic areas. The most pressing one among these are ‘Democratizing AI Resources Working Group.’
India already comes in the first group of AI-ready nations with systematic progress across all five layers of AI architecture applications, models, chips, infrastructure, and energy.
‘AI-ready nations’ refer to countries with infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, skills, and strategic vision necessary to effectively adopt and govern artificial intelligence.
Besides this, India also performed great in Stanford University’s 2025 Global AI Vibrancy Index by ranking in the ‘third’ position just behind developed economies like the US and China.
In the IMF’s AI Preparedness Index, India achieved a score of 49.3, which is much higher than 42.1 an average for emerging economies.
These achievements are the fruits of policy frameworks and the tech-centric approach of the government.
As highlighted earlier, the Centre has taken numerous steps towards democratising AI throughout the masses. It spans across public impact, AI infrastructure, access to compute, access to datasets and models, access to chips and semiconductor capabilities, and others.
Now, there are advanced AI applications such as Bhasini, which enables language access through AI, MausamGPT for forecasting rainfall, fog, and extreme weather, and Kisan e Mitra for simplifying access to government schemes.
Access to high-quality datasets is key to achieving democratisation, and thankfully, we have ‘AIKosh’, a national platform for AI datasets and models.
As per the data of Feb, AIkosh brings together 7,541 datasets and 273 AI models spanning 20 sectors on a single national platform.
Limited access to computing power is also hindering the process of AI democratisation. To clear this roadblock, the government has introduced some subsidised and shared compute resources.
Under the IndiaAI Mission, more than 38,000 high-end Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have been onboarded and are available at Rs 65 per hour (nearly one-third of the global average cost).
Additionally, 1,050 Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) have also been onboarded to further expand access to advanced AI processing capabilities.
India is also strengthening its domestic chip capabilities with schemes like India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), which has an outlay of Rs 76,000 crore aimed to support manufacturing, design, and talent development.
This mass spectrum of artificial intelligence in India also creates employment opportunities for the country and addresses the concerns of skill gaps among youths.
NITI AAYOG, a premier think tank, highlighted in its report ‘The Opportunity for Accelerated Economic Growth’ that one of the key potential outcomes of AI-led value creation is India’s ability to progressively narrow the AI skill gap with leading countries by 2035.
Even in India itself, job postings require AI expertise driven by the country’s IT capital Bangalore (11 per cent share of AI jobs), Hyderabad (9.57 per cent share of AI jobs), Pune (6.95 per cent), and Chennai (6.62 per cent).
To tackle these cross-sectoral AI demands, the ‘India-AI Impact Summit 2026’ can be a great opportunity to expand footprints in global technology galore.
The key seven Chakras of this summit:- (i) Human Capital, (ii) Inclusion for Social Empowerment, (iii) Safe and Trusted AI, (iv) Science, (v) Resilience, Innovation and Efficiency, (vi) Democratising AI resources, (vii) AI for Economic Development and Social Good.
Each of the chakras aims to foster multilateral collaboration on societal impacts of artificial intelligence. It focuses on building skills to ensure ethical deployments.
Overall, India currently stands at a pivotal stage for the democratisation of technology. This summit is a key enabler for the country to ensure access, inclusion, and equity at scale.
The future path is clear and India’s approach to AI democratisation highlights that scale, inclusion and innovation can work together. World is looking towards India as a role model in boosting the reach of AI to farmers, students, researchers, startups and public institutions.
