What makes India AI Impact Summit different from earlier global AI meetings

Previous global meetings were shaped by safety concerns, but the India AI summit is framed around real-world impact, deployment and how emerging economies fit into the global AI ecosystem

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 will be held from February 16 to 20 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, positioning India at the centre of the evolving global debate on artificial intelligence. Hosted by the Government of India under the IndiaAI Mission, the five-day event will bring together governments, technology companies, researchers and civil society groups to discuss how AI is being governed, built and deployed.

 

Unlike earlier global AI summits that were largely shaped by safety concerns or regulatory coordination, the India meet is being framed around ‘impact’ — that is, how AI is applied on the ground, who benefits from it, and how emerging economies fit into the global AI ecosystem.

 

 

The starting point: AI safety at Bletchley Park

 

The current series of global AI meetings began with the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom on November 1–2, 2023. Convened by the UK government, the summit concentrated almost entirely on the risks posed by advanced or “frontier” AI systems.

 

Its main outcome was the Bletchley Declaration, which was endorsed by 28 countries and the European Union, including the US, China, India and the UK. The declaration acknowledged both the opportunities and potential harms of AI, committing signatories to cooperate on evidence-based research into risks such as bias, misinformation and long-term safety concerns. Frontier AI companies, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic, also agreed to share safety testing information with governments.

 

However, participation at Bletchley Park was limited in scope. The discussions were mainly government-led, with safety as the dominant lens, and relatively little attention was paid to questions of deployment, economic impact or inclusion.

 

Broader participation in the Seoul summit

 

The AI Seoul Summit was held on May 21–22, 2024 and marked the second phase of this process. Hosted by South Korea, the summit expanded participation beyond governments to include industry, academia and civil society.

 

The meeting produced the Seoul Declaration for Safe, Innovative and Inclusive AI, which was adopted by 11 countries and the European Union. It committed participants to work towards interoperable global governance frameworks, drawing on the G7’s Hiroshima Process Code of Conduct. Sixteen major AI companies, including OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, pledged voluntary transparency around safety frameworks, risk thresholds considered “intolerable”, and mitigation measures.

 

Another group of countries, including the EU, agreed to collaborate on AI safety science, shared testing standards and risk identification, including severe harms such as misuse in chemical or biological contexts.

 

Seoul signalled a shift away from safety alone, placing greater emphasis on innovation and governance processes, while still keeping risk management at the core.

 

Paris AI summit and the turn towards action

 

The third major milestone was the AI Action Summit, held in Paris on February 10–11, 2025, and co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The summit drew more than 1,000 participants from over 100 countries, including international organisations, researchers, companies and civil society groups.

 

Unlike Bletchley and Seoul, the Paris summit placed “action” at the centre of its agenda, seeking concrete commitments around governance, economic impact and the societal implications of AI. Paris moved the conversation decisively towards implementation. Discussions covered public-interest AI, including digital public infrastructure and multilingual models; the future of work and skilling; trust, ethics and security; and global governance.

 

A joint declaration titled Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet was signed by 58 countries, though the US and the UK chose not to sign, citing concerns around regulation, national security and lack of clarity around AI governance.

 

The summit also saw the launch of the Current AI Initiative, backed by an initial $400 million, and the formation of a sustainability coalition focused on AI’s environmental footprint.

 

What India is trying to do differently this time

 

Against this backdrop, the India AI Impact Summit is positioned as a next step rather than a repetition. According to government briefings, the emphasis is on moving from principles and declarations to deployment and outcomes.

 

One major distinction is scale. More than 35,000 registrations from over 100 countries have been reported ahead of the summit, with heads of government, ministers and senior executives expected to attend. Global technology leaders such as Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang and Bill Gates are listed among confirmed participants.

 

Another difference is geography. This is the first summit in the series to be hosted in the Global South. Indian officials have described this as an attempt to broaden who sets the agenda on AI, particularly for developing economies that are often users rather than designers of AI systems.

 

From discussion to deployment

 

The summit’s agenda is structured around impact areas such as employment, trust, safety and sectoral applications. Sessions are planned on AI use in healthcare, education and governance, alongside discussions on labour markets and model safety.

 

Alongside policy discussions, the event will host the India AI Impact Expo, showcasing deployable AI solutions from startups, research institutions and technology firms. This focus on working systems and real-world use cases marks a departure from earlier summits that were primarily centred on regulation and safety.