New Delhi Hosts the Most Defining AI Gathering of the Decade
Something historic is unfolding inside Bharat Mandapam. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the India AI Impact Summit 2026, India is no longer positioning itself as just a technology market. It is positioning itself as an AI superpower.
For the first time, the world’s most influential AI builders, Big Tech CEOs, startup founders, and global policymakers have gathered in India not to observe, but to participate in shaping the next era of artificial intelligence.
With over 2.5 lakh visitors, 3,250 speakers, 600 startups, and participation from 100 countries, the summit represents the largest AI ecosystem convergence ever hosted in the Global South.
This is no longer about adoption. This is about leadership.
Why Global AI Leaders Are Showing Up in India
The presence of leaders like Sam Altman, Sundar Pichai, Demis Hassabis, and Dario Amodei signals a structural shift in how the global AI ecosystem views India.
For years, India was considered a talent hub. Today, it is being recognized as a deployment hub, data hub, and future model hub.
Three key factors are driving this shift:
1. Population-scale deployment advantage
India offers real-world testing at unmatched scale across healthcare, agriculture, finance, education, and governance.
2. Multilingual AI opportunity
With 22 official languages and hundreds of dialects, India presents the most complex and valuable language AI training environment.
3. Fastest-growing digital infrastructure layer
From UPI to Aadhaar to ONDC, India has built population-scale digital public infrastructure — creating fertile ground for AI-native applications.
Global AI companies are not coming to India to expand markets. They are coming to build the future.
The Leaders Defining the Next AI Decade
The summit brings together an unprecedented concentration of AI decision-makers. These are not observers. These are the architects of the global AI stack.
Global AI and Big Tech CEOs
- Sam Altman — CEO, OpenAI
- Sundar Pichai — CEO, Google & Alphabet
- Sir Demis Hassabis — CEO, Google DeepMind
- Dario Amodei — CEO, Anthropic
- Arthur Mensch — CEO, Mistral AI
These leaders are building foundation models that power global AI infrastructure.
Global Technology and Cloud Infrastructure Leaders
- Matthew Prince — CEO, Cloudflare
- Julie Sweet — CEO, Accenture
- Shantanu Narayen — CEO, Adobe
- Salil Parekh — CEO, Infosys
- C Vijayakumar — CEO, HCLTech
- Borje Ekholm — CEO, Ericsson
- Sanjay Mehrotra — CEO, Micron
- Martin Schroeter — CEO, Kyndryl
These companies form the compute, software, and enterprise backbone enabling AI adoption globally.
AI Startup Founders and Emerging AI Builders
- Naveen Tewari — Founder & CEO, InMobi
- Vishal Sikka — Founder & CEO, Vianai Systems
- Raj Koneru — CEO, Kore.ai
- Umesh Sachdev — CEO, Uniphore
- Navrina Singh — CEO, Credo AI
- Harshil Mathur — CEO, Razorpay
- Bipul Sinha — CEO, Rubrik
These founders represent the new generation building applied AI platforms across sectors.
Global Software, Policy, and Ecosystem Leaders
- Amanda Brock — CEO, OpenUK
- Anna Tumadóttir — CEO, Creative Commons
- Victoria Espinel — CEO, Business Software Alliance
- Hemant Taneja — CEO, General Catalyst
- Jay Chaudhry — CEO, Zscaler
Their participation reflects AI’s intersection with governance, security, and open ecosystems.
India’s Strategic Move: Building Its Own Foundation Models
The most important announcement at the summit is India’s unveiling of 12 indigenous foundation models developed under the IndiaAI Mission.
This is India’s transition from AI consumer to AI creator.
These models are trained on Indian datasets, optimized for Indian languages, and designed for Indian-scale applications.
This move mirrors what OpenAI did for the US and what DeepSeek did for China.
India is now building its own AI sovereignty layer.
600 Startups and the Rise of India’s AI Founder Economy
More than 600 startups are participating in the summit, many already deploying AI in production environments across:
- Healthcare diagnostics
- Financial inclusion
- Agriculture optimization
- Language translation
- Education accessibility
This signals the emergence of India’s AI founder economy — where founders are not just building SaaS tools, but foundational intelligence infrastructure.
For Indian founders, this summit offers something unprecedented: direct proximity to the world’s most influential AI capital allocators and infrastructure providers.
The Real Shift: India Is Becoming the World’s AI Deployment Capital
The most important takeaway from the summit is not announcements. It is validation.
For the first time, India is not being treated as a secondary market. It is being treated as a primary arena for AI development, deployment, and scaling.
The future of AI will not be decided only in Silicon Valley.
It will be co-created in places like New Delhi, Bengaluru, and Mumbai.
And the founders building today in India are closer than ever to shaping that future.
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