'AI For All': IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Pitches India As Architect Of Democratic AI At Inaugural Ceremony Of Summit In Delhi

Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw set a confident, aspirational tone at the inaugural ceremony of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 on Thursday, declaring the event the first AI summit in the Global South and the largest of its kind anywhere in the world.

"Welcome to the first AI summit in the Global South and the biggest AI summit so far," Vaishnaw told a packed Bharat Mandapam convention hall in New Delhi. "We have participation from 118 countries. Thank you all for making this summit a grand success."

The inaugural ceremony brought together an extraordinary gathering of global leaders. Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered the keynote address, French President Emmanuel Macron shared the stage, and the front rows were occupied by some of the most powerful figures in global technology - Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani, among others. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also addressed the gathering.

Vaishnaw used his address to articulate India's overarching philosophy on artificial intelligence, framing it squarely around Prime Minister Modi's vision of technology as a tool for the masses. "The goal is clear: AI should be used for shaping humanity, inclusive growth and a sustainable future," he said. "PM Modi believes in making technology available to all. Our Prime Minister's vision is to democratise technology, deploy it at scale, and make it accessible to all."

Describing AI as a "foundational technology" reshaping work, learning, and decision-making, the minister said India was working across all five layers of the AI stack, with a focus on solving practical, population-scale problems in healthcare, agriculture, education, and finance.

On the question of AI sovereignty - a subject of growing debate globally - Vaishnaw made a pointed argument for smaller, specialised models over large, resource-intensive frontier systems. India's position, he said, is that over 90 percent of real-world use cases can be addressed through such purpose-built models that deliver value at lower cost, without compromising on capability.

A centrepiece of his address was India's public compute infrastructure. "We treat compute as a public good," he said, announcing that through a public-private partnership, the government has built a common compute platform currently offering access to 38,000 GPUs at affordable rates to startups, academia, researchers, and students. He added that an additional 20,000 GPUs would soon be added to the platform, taking its scale closer to matching global peers.

The minister also highlighted that India's AI infrastructure is uniquely sustainable - more than 50 percent of the country's power generation capacity now comes from green sources, giving India a lower carbon footprint for its data centres and AI training facilities compared to most other major tech hubs.

Vaishnaw, in an earlier speech at the summit, called for significantly stronger regulations to combat the growing threat of deepfakes, emphasising the need to protect children and society from digital harms. Turning to the global AI safety conversation, he urged the world's top minds assembled in the hall to go beyond rhetoric. "As we discuss various technical matters, I will request the topmost brains who are present here to please bring some solid concrete suggestions on how to make AI safe," he said.

The minister also noted that the summit had structured its work around seven thematic working groups - covering Human Capital, Inclusion for Social Empowerment, Safe and Trusted AI, Resilience, Innovation and Efficiency, Science, Democratising AI Resources, and AI for Economic Development and Social Good - and that their outputs would serve as "guiding lights" for global AI collaboration going forward.

The summit, running from February 16 to 20 at Bharat Mandapam, is the first global AI event hosted in the Global South. It spans an expo floor of over 70,000 square metres and features thirteen country pavilions, with participation from governments, startups, research institutions, and international partners. The Indian government expects over 250,000 visitors across its five-day run — a scale that has already made it the largest AI gathering in history.

The summit has also entered the Guinness World Records for the highest number of pledges taken by students for the responsible use of AI within 24 hours.

Published on: Thursday, February 19, 2026, 09:59 AM IST