Big Tech bets, Galgotias robodog row shape day 3 of India-AI Summit

AI infrastructure bets, startup model launches and global funding commitments marked day three of the AI summit, while Galgotias University faced backlash over displaying Chinese robodog as their own

The India-AI Impact Summit entered its third day at Bharat Mandapam with Big Tech, defence leaders and India’s startup ecosystem converging to define the country’s next phase of AI expansion. Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis framed the scientific frontier, as Hassabis cautioned that current systems still lack consistency and continual learning.

 

Major infrastructure and investment announcements underscored India’s growing strategic importance. Nvidia tied up with Yotta, L&T and NPCI to expand AI compute, data centres and payments infrastructure, while also backing Indian startups alongside Peak XV and Accel. Microsoft president Brad Smith outlined plans to expand AI across the Global South, warning of a widening global AI divide even as India accelerates adoption.

 

 

The focus moved from policy direction to concrete execution across compute infrastructure, startup funding, defence, healthcare and digital public systems, reinforcing India’s attempt to scale domestic AI capability and deployment.

 

Nvidia anchors India’s sovereign compute expansion 

Compute infrastructure dominated announcements, with Nvidia expanding its presence through multiple partnerships spanning cloud, startups, payments and data centre infrastructure. Nvidia and Yotta Data Services said they would deploy one of Asia-Pacific’s largest DGX Cloud clusters in India, powered by advanced Blackwell Ultra GPUs, forming the backbone of sovereign AI compute capacity. The infrastructure is designed to support training and deployment of large AI models for enterprises, research institutions and startups.

 

Microsoft points to bridging AI divide 

Microsoft announced plans to invest $50 billion to expand AI infrastructure and services across countries in the Global South, placing emerging economies, including India at the centre of its global strategy. Microsoft president Brad Smith said there was an urgent need to bridge the global AI divide, warning that unequal access to compute and AI capabilities could widen economic and technological gaps between countries.

 

The investment will focus on expanding cloud infrastructure, enabling enterprise adoption and strengthening workforce readiness, as AI deployment becomes increasingly dependent on access to large-scale computing infrastructure and advanced models.

 

Google DeepMind expands research access, flags model limitations 

CEO and cofounder of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, said current AI systems remain powerful but inconsistent, with limitations in continual learning and reliability. He emphasised the need for research breakthroughs to improve reasoning and adaptability.

 

Separately, at a company event, Google DeepMind announced a partnership with the Indian government to provide researchers and institutions access to its frontier AI science models, expanding domestic research capability.

 

Sarvam launches domestic model as sovereign AI push accelerates

 

Domestic startup Sarvam unveiled a new AI model designed specifically for Indian languages and enterprise use cases, marking continued progress in India’s sovereign AI efforts. The model is aimed at improving performance across regional languages, enterprise workflows and local use cases, addressing limitations of global models that are primarily trained on Western datasets.

 

Defence and aerospace leaders highlight operational deployment

 

Defence experts said AI would play a critical role in improving military decision-making, logistics and operational readiness. Lt Gen Vinod Shinghal said AI would enhance operational capabilities but command authority would remain with human leadership. Military discussions focused on applications such as predictive maintenance, intelligence analysis and mission planning.

 

AI will be workforce enabler: Airbus India chief 

At a separate panel discussion, industry leaders also highlighted AI’s role in augmenting professional expertise rather than replacing workers. Airbus executives said AI would enhance engineering, safety and operational efficiency while maintaining human oversight, reflecting broader industry emphasis on augmentation rather than automation-led displacement.

 

Healthcare, workforce readiness and adoption capacity take focus 

Healthcare deployment emerged as another major theme, with discussions focusing on scaling AI in primary healthcare systems, workforce training and service delivery. The sessions examined how AI could improve diagnostics, workforce efficiency and system capacity, particularly in resource-constrained environments.

 

AI literacy expansion is essential say industry leaders 

Technology and enterprise leaders also emphasised workforce readiness and skills development. Founder and CEO of Vianai Systems, Vishal Sikka, said expanding AI literacy would be essential to ensure workers can adapt to technological shifts.

 

Meanwhile, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu said India could move faster in adopting AI than the US over the next decade, reflecting faster digital integration and population-scale deployment potential.

 

Rishi Sunak says AI optimism more in India than in West 

Former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak said optimism around AI adoption was stronger in India than in Western economies, where concerns over job displacement and regulatory risk remain higher.

 

Startup ecosystem and funding momentum for domestic innovation 

Investor participation expanded alongside infrastructure and model announcements, with global technology firms and venture investors committing capital to Indian AI startups. Funding partnerships announced by Nvidia with Peak XV and Accel India are aimed at accelerating the development of domestic applications, infrastructure and enterprise-focused AI systems.

 

NPCI said the next phase of its AI work will move towards a more general, scalable AI layer for the payments ecosystem, which will include exploring architectures to support high-volume, low-latency environments, and gradually expanding multilingual and agent-oriented capabilities.

 

Galgotias robodog controversy draws scrutiny over authenticity claims 

The summit also saw controversy after Galgotias University displayed a robotic dog presented as its own innovation, which was later identified as a commercially available Chinese product. Summit authorities asked the university to vacate its stall, and the power supply to the pavilion was reportedly cut. The incident drew attention to authenticity standards and verification requirements for research and innovation showcased at the summit.

 

S Krishnan, secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), told reporters at the summit that the government was keen to avoid any controversy around the Expo displays, following a request to the university to take down its exhibit from the exhibition area.