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World leaders and industry giants framed the summit as a moment where geopolitical ambition, digital scale and capital commitment converged around India’s bid to become an AI superpower.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi joins hands with Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others during the India AI Impact Summit 2026. (PTI)
Thursday was the fourth and most high-profile day of the AI Impact Summit 2026, held at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, as global leaders like UN chief Antonio Guterres and French President Emmanuel Macron graced the occasion and discussed the dangerous rise of a technology that is equally igniting both investor enthusiasm and grave unease.
The stellar line-up included Prime Minister Narendra Modi; Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani; Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman, Bharti Enterprises; Shantanu Narayan, President and CEO, Adobe; Dario Amodei, CEO, Anthropic; Rishad Premji, Executive Chairman, Wipro; and Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI.
As PM Modi positioned India as a future global AI hub based on inclusion, ethics and “AI for all”, insisting that technology empowers humanity rather than concentrating power, Pichai touted India being on an “extraordinary trajectory” in AI adoption and talent and Ambani underlined the stakes of massive private sector investment on India’s AI future.
Here’s who said what at the summit:
PM Narendra Modi: Unveiling his human-centric ‘human’ approach to Artificial Intelligence at the AI Impact Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted that the future of AI must be ethical, sovereign and legitimate.
Decoding MANAV, the Prime Minister said the Hindi word for “human” is also an acronym that reflects India’s five key principles for AI: ethical and moral systems, accountable governance, national sovereignty (especially data rights), accessible and inclusive technology, and legitimate, legitimate AI systems that people can trust.
Emphasizing the need to put people at the center of technological transformation, Modi called for making “skilling, reskilling and lifelong learning a mass movement” to prepare society for the rapidly evolving digital age.
“Artificial intelligence marks a transformative chapter in human history. India is not only part of the AI revolution, but is leading and shaping it,” he said in the presence of world leaders and CEOs of leading companies.
The Prime Minister also described AI as a historic change equivalent to the invention of wireless communications. “When signals were first transmitted wirelessly, no one could have imagined that one day the entire world would be connected in real time. Artificial Intelligence is such a game-changer in human history. What we are seeing today, what we are predicting, is just the beginning of its impact.”
India sees a future in AI, the Prime Minister said, as he believes that any model that succeeds at India’s scale and diversity can be deployed anywhere in the world.
Mukesh Ambani: The Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited compared Artificial Intelligence to Akshay Patra of Mahabharata and said that it is not just another technology.
“Artificial Intelligence is not just another technology. For the first time, humans are creating human-like systems that can learn, speak, analyze, move and produce autonomously. AI is the mantra that powers every instrument or every machine and system to work faster, better and smarter. I see AI as a modern Akshaya Patra, the mythological ship in the Mahabharata that provides endless nourishment to all. Provides unlimited growth in knowledge, efficiency and productivity.”
Ambani said Reliance Jio will invest Rs 10 lakh crore towards AI over the next seven years, adding that Jio will also make AI widely affordable as it did for internet data. “Jio has already started building AI applications for India’s most pressing challenges in inclusive growth,” he said.
When asked about AI taking away jobs, Ambani took a positive stance and said that new technology will not eliminate jobs but will create high-skilled employment opportunities. “My belief is certified by an undeniable truth. In the coming decades, no country in the world can match India’s strength in demography, democracy, development, digital infrastructure, data production, AI harvest. India is the world’s largest mobile data consumer. With about 1 billion internet users, the cost of data is among the lowest globally. And in terms of quality, there is no difference between Delhi and the most remote Indian village,” he said.
“Second, Aadhaar, 1.4 billion digital IDs. Third, UPI processes over 12 billion transactions monthly. Fourth, India is one of the top three startup ecosystems with 100,000 startups and over 100 unicorns. Fifth, India’s secure and inclusive digital public infrastructure stack is now being adopted by countries around the world,” he said, noting that social relevance, not a momentary fad, is what is needed in India. AI development should be promoted.
Antonio Guterres: The UN Secretary-General praised the summit, cautioning that the future of Artificial Intelligence cannot be decided by a handful of countries or a few billionaires. “Done right, AI can advance the Sustainable Development Goals, accelerate advances in medicine, expand learning opportunities, strengthen food security, strengthen climate action and disaster preparedness, and improve access to critical public services,” he said.
Guterres added: “The meeting in India has special meaning. It brings this conversation closer to the realities shaping the world. Because the future of AI cannot be decided by a handful of countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires.”
Emmanuel Macron: Hailing India’s role in creating “what no other country could”, the French President shared an example while addressing the summit, saying: “10 years ago, a street vendor in Mumbai could not open a bank account. No address, no papers, no access… but today the same vendor accepts payments on his phone. This is not a technology story. This is a civilizational story.”
The President lauded India’s progress in adopting and democratizing AI technology, saying: “India created something that no other country in the world could create… a digital identity for 1.4 billion people, a payments system that now processes 20 billion transactions every month, a health infrastructure that has issued 500 million digital health IDs.”
As PM Modi sat in the audience, Macron said: “Here are the results. They call it India Stack Open Interoperable Sovereign. That’s what this summit is all about. We are clearly at the beginning of a huge boom, and you (PM Modi) described it perfectly during your intervention…” Saying that India has proved the world wrong, Macron said: “Ten years ago, the world said that 1.4 billion people would have access to the digital economy. India proved them wrong. And today, some people say that AI is a game that only the greatest people can play.”
The French President said: “India and France, together with Europe and our allies, who believe in our vision… may have different paths… The future of AI will be built by those who combine innovation and responsibility, technology with humanity, and India and France will help shape this future.”
Dario Amodei: The chief executive of American artificial intelligence company Anthropic described “the energy and ambition in this room and across India as incredible” and added: “I’ve been meeting with Indian builders and enterprises over the past few days, and the energy to build together here is palpable unlike anywhere else”.
Pointing to the company’s increased focus on India, he revealed that Anthropic has launched a new office in Bengaluru and named experienced business leader Irena Ghosh, who has three decades of experience in building companies in India, as Managing Director of Anthropic India. He said that the company has secured new partnerships with major Indian companies including Infosys.
Amodei argued that society is already far down the path where AI systems are just a few years from outperforming most people in most areas of thinking and expertise.
He said, “It is only a few years for AI models to surpass the cognitive abilities of most humans for most things. We in the data center are very close to what I call a nation of geniuses, a group of AI agents that are more capable than most humans at most things and can coordinate at superhuman speed.”
Sam Altman: The CEO of OpenAI praised India’s rapid adoption of artificial intelligence, saying: “It’s amazing to be here, obviously the work happening in India and the adoption of AI is leading the world, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. It will be one of the biggest markets for AI in the world, and I think India’s impact will be huge.”
Describing India as a potential “full-stack AI leader”, he announced plans to expand the company’s footprint in the country. Linking AI development to India’s democratic context, Altman said, “The world’s largest democracy is well-positioned to lead AI – not just to create it, but to shape it and decide what our future will be like.”
He said that many existing roles, particularly parts of cognitive replication, data processing and even software development, will be reshaped as AI systems become more capable. “More than 100 million people in India use ChatGPT every week, and more than a third of them are students.” India is also the fastest growing market for OpenAI globally, he said.
Sundar Pichai: Hailing India’s transformation, the Alphabet CEO said he is always amazed by the pace of change in the country. Pichai compared the change in Andhra Pradesh and said that he had once traveled by train from Visakhapatnam. “Today, Google is building a full-stack AI hub in the same city as part of its $15 billion infrastructure investment in India,” he said. Pichai said this is technology that can “improve lives at once on a generational scale and improve the lives of billions of people with AI”.
However, Alphabet’s top boss issued a warning regarding equal access to technology, warning that the current digital divide should not become an “AI divide”.
Announcing the “US-India Connect” initiative, Pichai described it as a comprehensive digital infrastructure and AI investment plan that could potentially reshape the future of global tech cooperation and advance India’s position in the global digital economy. The new initiative is an extension of Google’s previously announced $15 billion five-year AI investment in India, which was focused on a mega AI hub in Visakhapatnam.
February 19, 2026, 14:37 IST
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