Google has announced the date for the I/O 2026 event, which is scheduled to commence on May 19 and continue until May 20. The company has confirmed in a blog that it will be sharing details like its latest AI breakthroughs and updates in products across the company, from Gemini to Android and more.
Apple is reportedly preparing a new wave of AI-powered hardware, including its first smart glasses, a wearable pendant, and camera-equipped AirPods. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the devices will rely on built-in cameras and work closely with the iPhone, allowing Siri to understand visual context and respond based on what users are seeing. The move reportedly signals Apple’s broader push into AI-driven wearables as it looks beyond the iPhone for future growth. The report noted that the smart glasses will be the most advanced device, while the pendant and camera-equipped AirPods will be simpler products mainly built to support Siri with visual input.
Anthropic has announced the launch of Claude Sonnet 4.6. According to the company, the new model introduces upgrades over the Sonnet 4.5 model in aspects like coding, computer use, long-context reasoning, agent planning, knowledge work, and design. The company has also introduced a 1 million token context window in beta, allowing the model to process significantly larger amounts of information in a single session.
Snapchat has announced the launch of Creator Subscriptions, a new feature that lets users pay for additional content from their favourite creators. The company said the program is currently being tested in an alpha phase with select creators in the United States, starting February 23. According to Snap Newsroom, users can subscribe to creators directly in the Snapchat app to access exclusive Stories and Snaps, receive priority replies, and watch that creator’s Stories without ads.
Apple has released the first public beta of iOS 26.4, following the developer beta rollout on Tuesday. According to MacWorld, the update adds video podcast support in Apple Podcasts, text-based playlist creation in Apple Music, end-to-end encryption for RCS messages, and changes to Stolen Device Protection. The first public beta of iOS 26.4 also introduces a new metric for the sleep section of the Health app.
Google has rolled out Android’s Quick Share interoperability with Apple’s AirDrop beyond the Pixel 10 series. According to Google’s support page, the feature is now available in Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold through Quick Share. However, the company noted that the feature is not accessible in the Pixel 9a phone. Additionally, the company added that privacy and speed remain a priority, as the feature is engineered with multi-layered security at its foundation. The Quick Share feature allows users on Android and Apple devices to send files directly to each other without relying on third-party apps or cloud services.
Samsung is set to unveil the anticipated Galaxy S26 series at its upcoming Galaxy Unpacked 2026 event on February 25. Ahead of the launch, the company has teased a range of AI features that it said are “designed to unify photo and video capturing, editing, and sharing into one intuitive system.” The initial teasers and details seem to focus mainly on Galaxy AI. These AI-powered features strike an uncanny resemblance to the existing Galaxy AI features that are available to Samsung Galaxy S25 series users. According to the blog post, these AI-powered enhancements aim to deliver a refreshed camera experience.
At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has outlined a broader push to build what it describes as a payments-native, sovereign AI layer for India’s digital payments infrastructure. The organisation announced a collaboration with Nvidia on February 18 to scale its in-house AI work, building on the recent launch of FiMI (Finance Model for India), a domain-specific language model developed for India’s payments ecosystem.
Gnani (pronounced: Gyani) releases a 5bn-parameter voice-to-voice artificial intelligence model as a release preview in a run up to a 70bn-parameter multimodal AI model that it plans to release soon. Its focus on voice-first AI and sovereign models has put it among the startups building India’s AI stack under the IndiaAI Mission.
Nvidia will establish one of Asia Pacific’s largest DGX Cloud clusters within Yotta’s HGX B300 Blackwell Ultra supercluster under a four-year engagement valued at over $1 billion, announced Yotta Data Service on February 18. According to the companies, DGX Cloud has been utilising Yotta’s GPU infrastructure over the past year, and the expanded deployment reflects growing regional and global demand for AI compute.
India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) could expand overseas through a mix of bilateral and multilateral arrangements, according to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Speaking on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026, NPCI Executive Director-Growth, Sohini Rajolatold Business Standard that the organisation is looking at “bilateral, multilateral, all kinds of different models” to take NPCI’s payments infrastructure abroad.
As the India-AI Impact Summit moves into its third day on Wednesday, the agenda will spotlight sovereign AI capacity, worldwide deployment hurdles, scientific advances and policy direction, with keynote remarks expected from Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and global AI leaders.
Greater Noida-based Galgotias University found itself at the centre of a controversy after it showcased a Chinese-made robotic dog as its own creation at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, currently underway in New Delhi's Bharat Mandapam.
Google DeepMind CEO and Co-founder Demis Hassabis on Wednesday said current artificial intelligence (AI) systems still lack consistency, continual learning and long-term planning, the key attributes required to reach Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
Delegates will get restricted access to the world's largest AI summit, India AI Impact Summit 2026, on Wednesday and Thursday due to VIP movements and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence at the venue, senior government officials have said.
Microsoft on Wednesday said it is on pace to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to help expand AI to countries across the 'Global South'. The announcement was made at the AI summit in New Delhi, where top executives from global AI giants meet several world leaders this week.
India’s largest online travel company MakeMyTrip on Wednesday said it will collaborate with OpenAI to deepen AI-led travel discovery and capture high-intent travel queries. As part of the collaboration, MakeMyTrip will use OpenAI’s application programming interfaces (APIs) to power new artificial intelligence features in its app. The integration will enable travellers to move from conversational inspiration to booking within the company’s generative AI planning assistant, Myra.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can significantly improve the readiness, sustainment and operational effectiveness of military equipment, defence officials and industry leaders said on Wednesday. At a panel discussion titled ‘AI in Sustainment: Enhancing Operation Readiness of Military Equipment’ at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, they said that AI is becoming central not just to battlefield operations but also to predictive diagnostics and decision-making speed in modern warfare.
In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is being widely used across sectors, Lt Gen Vipun Singhal said that no matter how accurate and proficient AI becomes, human judgment, moral responsibility and command authority must remain paramount in military matters.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here in the national capital. Pichai is here for the Global AI Impact Summit 2026 and will deliver the keynote address on February 20 at the summit.
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday said India is focused on practical applications of AI, including enterprise productivity, and solutions for population-scale challenges such as healthcare, agriculture, and climate change.
Ebba Busch, Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Energy, Business and Industry, arrived here in the national capital on Wednesday for the Global AI Impact Summit 2026.
Sanjeev Chopra, Secretary of the Department of Food & Public Distribution, on Tuesday, emphasised the transformative role artificial intelligence (AI) has played in strengthening transparency and responsiveness across the department's operations.
As humanitarian crises deepen and funding shrinks, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a critical tool for aid agencies like the World Food Programme (WFP) seeking to do more with less. “But when it comes to addressing the core issues related to hunger, AI at best can act as an enabler and accelerator, helping get food to the right place at the right time, at lower cost and with greater precision,” said Magan Naidoo, WFP’s chief data officer, in a virtual interaction with Business Standard.
India has emerged as a pivotal hub for artificial intelligence (AI) innovation, driven by its vast pool of developers, startups and technology partners, said Nvidia’s Managing Director for South Asia, Vishal Dhupar. He noted that the US-based chipmaker is working closely with technology leaders across the country to accelerate digital transformation and drive growth.
Alphabet-owned YouTube was down for more than 320,000 users in the United States on Tuesday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. There were 321,958 incidents of people reporting issues with the social media platform, as of 0818 p.m. ET, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from multiple sources.
Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Tuesday asserted that artificial intelligence and machine learning are reshaping the trajectory of human civilisation, and called upon the youth to become leaders. The LG said that India's campuses have evolved beyond mere degree-granting institutions and have transformed into factories of ideas and workshops of innovation where possibility takes tangible form.
Galgotias University has been asked to vacate its stall at the AI Summit Expo immediately, sources said, amid a controversy over the display of a robotic dog that raised questions about the origin and ownership of the technology showcased.
India is poised to add nearly $2 trillion in market capitalisation through technology over the next decade, creating large companies, which will reshape the country's economic landscape, said VC firm Accel on Wednesday.
India AI Expo Summit 2026 will remain closed on February 19 and will instead get an extra day on February 21, a senior government official said on Wednesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the summit on February 19.
With the rapid mainstreaming of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and their growing accessibility across sectors, AI-related incidents, ranging from deepfakes and misinformation to system failures and cybersecurity breaches, are rising sharply. Experts at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi called for stronger global systems to monitor and respond to AI incidents, warning that technology is evolving faster than policy frameworks.
India needs to scale up investment in Artificial Intelligence from the current $1.2 billion to match the global levels and the Budget announcement of 20-year tax holiday to foreign companies offers "foundational infrastructure" for expanding AI, a senior Nvidia official said on Wednesday.
The AI-India Impact Summit 2026 strengthens India's role as a key platform for shaping the global AI agenda. Anchored in the Seven Chakras and the Three Sutras of People, Planet, and Progress, the Summit advances a development-oriented framework for artificial intelligence.
India may be faster in AI adoption than America in ten years with its youthful, more optimistic population embracing the new wave of technology, Zoho Corporation Co-founder and Chief Scientist, Sridhar Vembu said on Wednesday. Like how UPI became mass-scale in India, AI could also be the same, Vembu said while speaking at the AI Impact Summit here.
Founder of a Bengaluru-based AI startup has thanked the Delhi police for recovering wearables which were allegedly stolen from his stall on Day 1 of the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. "Just wanted to update everyone, our devices have been recovered. Huge thanks to Delhi Police for the super fast response and support," said Dhananjay Yadav, founder of Bengaluru-based startup NeoSapien, in a post on X on Wednesday.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a responsible enabler designed to augment human capability and not a replacement for expertise, Airbus India chief Jurgen Westermeier said on Wednesday. The President and Managing Director for India and South Asia at Airbus also said that AI should be seen as a bridge that helps to be more efficient and optimise resources on the way to the net-zero goals.
It took only a 15-second clip of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt duking it out on a crumbling rooftop at twilight to draw swift outrage, and sizable fear, from Hollywood over the last few days. The widely circulated video was created by the Irish director Ruairi Robinson using Seedance 2.0, a powerful artificial intelligence video generation tool owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance. It had plenty of the bells and whistles of a big-budget Hollywood film: sweeping camera angles, stunt choreography, crisp sound effects and haunting music.
India has gained a lot of momentum to create opportunities for AI with proactive policies and the country's businesses can benefit from the new 'mega wave' of technology, Zscaler, Inc CEO, Chairman and Founder Jay Chaudhry said on Wednesday.
OpenAI on Wednesday announced partnerships with leading Indian universities to embed artificial intelligence across management, health, engineering, creative and multidisciplinary education, aiming to build AI-ready talent for a tech-driven economy.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Wednesday said that it plans to set up a joint venture with chipmaking major Nvidia to build sovereign, gigawatt-scale AI factory infrastructure in India.
Microsoft Vice-Chairman and President Brad Smith on Wednesday said there is an "urgent" need to close the artificial intelligence (AI) divide between the global north and south. Addressing the session titled 'Trusted AI for everyone' at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Smith said, "At the end of 2025, 25 per cent of the global north working age population was using AI, compared to only 14 per cent in the south. This is the new divide, and it's getting worse, not better."
Indian-American entrepreneur Vishal Sikka on Wednesday said that India must strengthen literacy efforts to ensure its people can harness the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and benefit from its growth.
 "Tech Wrap Feb 18: Google I/O 2026, Apple AI devices, Claude Sonnet 4.6")
