India to Host AI Summit in 2026, Aiming to Make AI Useful for Everyone

India will host the AI Impact Summit in February 2026, showing its strong focus on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to benefit all people. The government shared this news in Parliament on Wednesday.

This big event supports Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of making new technology easy to access and helpful for solving real problems in areas like health, farming, education, climate, and governance, said Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in the Lok Sabha.

India’s AI plan is built on values like fairness, safety, privacy, and human rights. A key part of the plan is to build AI models using Indian languages and local data, which can help create tools suited to the country’s many cultures and languages.

Some Indian startups, including Sarvam AI, Soket AI, Gnani AI, and Gan AI, are already working on these types of language models. These will be open-source, which means other companies can use them to build their own India-specific apps.

To help more AI projects grow, the government is also working to improve AI computing power by giving easier access to GPU systems (used to train AI) and by improving the AIKosh platform, which already has over 1,000 datasets and 208 AI tools, such as text-to-speech in Indian languages.

The government is also funding around 30 AI projects in areas like healthcare, climate solutions, and government services.

To help young companies grow globally, the IndiaAI Startups Global Programme is giving training to 10 startups in places like HEC Paris and Station F. These include companies such as PrivaSapien (which works on privacy-friendly AI) and Secure Blink (which builds tools for AI security).

To make sure AI is used safely and responsibly, India has also created the IndiaAI Safety Institute. This body is working on projects like removing bias from AI, machine learning forgetfulness (unlearning), and adding hidden watermarks to track AI-created content.

India is also putting strong laws and protections in place to control the risks of AI, such as fake news, deepfakes, and data misuse. Some important rules include the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023), the IT Act (2000), and IT Rules (2021).

India is using a mix of technology and law to build a safe and ethical AI system, including government-supported research on privacy, fake news detection, and cybersecurity.

Hosting the 2026 AI Impact Summit proves that India is becoming a global leader in building AI that is fair, inclusive, and focused on solving real problems for all.