About the Summit
Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands at the threshold of fundamentally reshaping human civilization, pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve. This technological revolution opens unprecedented opportunities for advancements across every domain of human endeavor, while profoundly challenging the very foundations of society in an increasingly complex and evolving geopolitical order. For developing countries, AI offers an unprecedented opportunity to leapfrog traditional developmental pathways. The multi-modal and multi-lingual capabilities of AI create new possibilities through which access to benefits can be made available at scale. As a result, AI is seen not merely as a technological advancement but as a strategic tool to enable inclusive growth and expand access to opportunities that have historically been out of reach for large segments of the population.
Recognizing this transformative potential, the past four years have witnessed a remarkable surge in multilateral initiatives dedicated to harnessing AI's potential responsibly and equitably. From the G20 AI Principles to the UN and Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) Resolutions on AI, the African Declaration on AI, and most recently, the Hamburg Declaration on Responsible AI, these efforts reflect unprecedented international recognition that AI's transformative impact transcends borders and requires coordinated global action.
Despite these high-level commitments, a fundamental gap persists between global aspirations and the reality on the ground. The Global AI Divide continues to widen, with AI resources and capabilities concentrated among select nations and corporations. This concentration fundamentally limits the development of social, cultural, and linguistically contextual AI solutions, constraining AI's potential to accelerate progress toward our collective development goals, especially for the Global South.
Simultaneously, AI's rapid proliferation across society is creating new challenges that demand urgent attention: disrupting traditional employment patterns, exacerbating existing biases, and driving exponential increases in energy consumption. These developments underscore the urgent need to move beyond aspirational frameworks toward concrete, measurable impact that addresses both AI's promise and its perils.
The Mantra: A Time for Impact
The India–AI Impact Summit 2026, announced by Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the France AI Action Summit and scheduled for February 19–20 in New Delhi, will be the first-ever global AI summit hosted in the Global South.
Building on the momentum of leading international forums such as the UK AI Safety Summit, the AI Seoul Summit, the France AI Action Summit, and the Global AI Summit on Africa, this high-level convening marks a critical inflection point. It will strengthen existing multilateral initiatives while advancing new priorities, deliverables, and cooperative frameworks—moving from high-level political statements to demonstrable impact and tangible progress in global AI cooperation.
The Summit charts a path towards a future where the transformative power of AI serves humanity, drives inclusive growth, fosters social development, and promotes people-centric innovations that protect our planet. It also seeks to amplify the voice of the Global South, ensuring that technological advancements and opportunities are shared broadly, not concentrated in a few regions.
At the same time, AI’s rapid proliferation across society poses urgent challenges—disrupting traditional employment patterns, exacerbating biases, and accelerating energy consumption. These developments highlight the pressing need to go beyond aspirational frameworks and deliver measurable, concrete impact that addresses both the promise and the perils of AI.
The Three Sutras
The India - AI Impact Summit will be anchored on three foundational principles, known as 'Sutras'—a Sanskrit term meaning guiding principles or essential threads that weave together wisdom and action. These three Sutras define how AI can be harnessed through multilateral cooperation for collective benefit
People
The People Sutra envisions AI as a force for human progress—respecting cultural diversity, preserving dignity, and ensuring inclusion in its design and deployment. It affirms that technology must remain human-centred, advance people-first development while upholding safety, trust, and shared benefit.
Planet
The Planet Sutra calls for AI that advances innovation responsibly—reducing its resource footprint while accelerating climate resilience and environmental protection. It upholds that technological progress must align with planetary stewardship, ensuring AI strengthens rather than undermines global sustainability.
Progress
The Progress Sutra envisages AI as an engine for inclusive growth—aligning its benefits with global development priorities and equitable access to opportunity. It emphasizes democratizing key AI resources and applying AI to accelerate socio-economic progress across sectors such as health, education, governance, and agriculture.
The Seven Chakras
Building upon the three foundational Sutras, the deliberations at the AI Impact Summit will be organized around seven interconnected Chakras, areas of multilateral cooperation designed to channel collective energy toward holistic societal transformation. These Seven Chakras represent focused domains of international collaboration that translate the broader principles of People, Planet, and Progress into concrete areas of action:
- Human Capital
- Inclusion for Social Empowerment
- Safe and Trusted AI
- Resilience, Innovation, and Efficiency
- Science
- Democratizing AI Resources
- AI for Economic Growth and Social Good
Each Chakra represents a distinct yet interconnected sphere of multilateral engagement through which the transformative potential of AI can be harnessed to deliver tangible benefits aligned with the three Sutras. Together, they offer a comprehensive framework that enables countries, international organizations, and stakeholders to coordinate AI deployment strategies that enable the maximization of collective benefits while still addressing shared challenges.
As AI reshapes economies and societies, concerns around safety, transparency, and trust call for robust, technology-enabled safeguards that can match the sophistication and scale of modern AI systems. The Safe & Trusted AI Chakra seeks to close this governance gap by empowering all nations to participate meaningfully in AI oversight while supporting continued innovation and technological advancement.
AI is transforming the global employment landscape, creating new opportunities while disrupting traditional jobs and skills. Fragmented responses, absence of global AI literacy standards, and insufficient investment in workforce transition threaten to deepen the "AI divide." The Human Capital Chakra addresses these challenges by advancing equitable skilling, inclusive workforce transition, and broad sharing of AI-driven productivity gains.
AI is reshaping how science is done, from genomics and drug discovery to climate and materials research. The Science Chakra aims to promote AI in frontier science research and translate breakthroughs into inclusive, real-world impact through strengthening global scientific collaboration, establishing clear scientific norms and transparency standards for AI in research.
As AI infrastructure expands, its heavy environmental and energy footprint threatens climate resilience and inclusive growth across the world. The Resilience, Innovation & Efficiency Chakra promotes frugal, adaptable and sustainable AI, lightweight modular systems that work in low-resource contexts without compromising impact and performance.
AI technologies hold immense potential for advancing socio-economic outcomes – provided appropriate measures are taken to ensure their design, development, and deployment are inclusive. The Inclusion for Social Empowerment Chakra at the AI Impact Summit 2026 is to encourage design, development, and deployment of AI systems that actively account for and accommodate the diverse needs, identities, and experiences of all users.
The growing demands of AI development require vast infrastructure—compute and hardware, data infrastructure—that are concentrated in a few regions today, reinforcing global inequalities in innovation capacity. The Democratizing AI Resources Chakra seeks to democratize these foundational infrastructure resources through improving affordability, access and demand for all nations to foster inclusive technological progress.
AI holds significant potential to catalyse economic growth and advance inclusive societal progress. The Economic Growth and Social Good Chakra at the AI Impact Summit 2026 seeks to promote AI-driven pathways that not only strengthen service delivery and access in critical sectors but also generate measurable contributions to productivity, innovation, and growth, thereby advancing inclusive and equitable development.
The Impact of AI
Achieving this vision requires global consensus on how AI is developed and applied in ways that serve the Planet, its People, and the Progress of all. This includes rethinking how data is managed, how AI models are designed and deployed, and how these technologies are integrated into our social and economic fabric. The India AI Summit aims to build consensus on all these issues so that AI’s Impact is realized equitably by all.
Achieving this vision requires global consensus on how AI is developed and applied in ways that serve the Planet, its People, and the Progress of all. This includes rethinking how data is managed, how AI models are designed and deployed, and how these technologies are integrated into our social and economic fabric. The India AI Summit aims to build consensus on all these issues so that AI’s Impact is realized equitably by all.
The AI Impact Summit represents more than a gathering of leaders; it embodies a commitment to amplify the positive impact of AI. Through the three foundational Sutras and seven focused Chakras, the global community will forge concrete pathways that ensure AI serves the Planet, empowers all People, and accelerates Progress for every nation.