Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday (February 17, 2026) said that artificial intelligence (AI) now stood at “a civilisational inflection point” of expanding human capability but would test social foundations if left unguided. He said the technology must be used to accelerate global development while remaining deeply human-centric.
Mr. Modi spoke on the Indian government’s AI initiatives, saying that through the IndiaAI Mission, “we are ensuring a code that reflects our values, serves our people and positions India as a responsible AI leader for the world”.
He referenced some of the initiatives taken by India for addressing its own issues. “Leveraging AI mindfully, with a strategic lens, helps address deep developmental challenges while creating entirely new economic opportunities, enabling inclusive growth, bridging the urban-rural divide and expanding access to opportunity. In healthcare, AI is already delivering impact,” he said.
He mentioned the use of AI-based solutions in the field of education and health, and by organisations such as Amul leveraging the technology to reach 36 lakh women dairy workers by providing guidance on cattle health and productivity.
He conceded that “concerns regarding bias and limitations in AI remain deeply relevant”, especially related to gender and socio-economic background. He added that tackling the issue required global cooperation. “Our diversity — linguistic, cultural, regional — means that AI bias can manifest in ways that might not be obvious in Western contexts,” he said, adding that India was beginning to address this more “systematically” with the focus on “creating diverse datasets that represent India’s plurality, greater emphasis on AI development in regional languages, and growing research on fairness and bias in Indian academic institutions and tech companies”.
Addressing concerns over the changing nature of employment especially in the white collar and Information Technology sectors due to AI, he said that the “fundamental shift is that AI isn’t replacing the IT sector. It is transforming it.” He said that “preparation is the best antidote to fear”, and his government had launched “one of the most ambitious skilling initiatives in the world”.
“We’re not approaching this as a future problem but we’re treating it as a present imperative,” he said. On the question of safety, the Prime Minister said that global cooperation was needed to ensure that “while AI may enhance human capabilities, the ultimate responsibility for decision-making must always remain with human beings”.
“My vision for AI in Aatmanirbhar Bharat rests on three pillars: sovereignty, inclusivity, and innovation. My vision is that India should be among the top three AI superpowers globally, not just in the consumption of AI but in creation of models,” he said.
“Every Indian will experience AI as an enabler of opportunity, a multiplier of capability, and a servant of human dignity, not as a threat to their livelihood or an instrument of control. Aatmanirbhar Bharat in AI means India writing its own code for the digital century, and through the IndiaAI Mission, we are ensuring that the code reflects our values, serves our people, and positions India as a responsible AI leader for the world,” he said.
ANI: India is hosting the AI Impact Summit 2026 for the first time anywhere in the Global South. The Motto of the Summit is “Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhaye” (Welfare for all, happiness of all). What’s the vision of this Summit, and why this motto?
PM Narendra Modi: Today, AI stands at a civilisational inflection point. It can expand human capability in unprecedented ways, but it can also test existing social foundations if left unguided. That is why we have deliberately framed this Summit around Impact that ensures meaningful and equitable outcomes, not just innovation.
The guiding spirit, “Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhaye”, reflects India’s civilisational philosophy. The end goal of technology should be ‘Welfare for All, Happiness of All’. Technology exists to serve humanity, not replace it.
The Summit is structured around People, Planet and Progress. AI systems draw upon knowledge and data generated across societies worldwide. Therefore, we want AI’s benefits to be diffused to everyone and not just hoarded by early adopters.
As the first global AI summit hosted in the Global South, India is creating a platform that amplifies under-represented voices and development priorities.
AI governance, inclusive datasets, climate applications, agricultural productivity, public health, and multilingual access are not peripheral issues for us. They are central. Our vision is clear: AI must accelerate global development while remaining deeply human-centric.
ANI: You have always spoken about using technology for empowerment and development. How do you see AI’s role in Viksit Bharat 2047?
PM Narendra Modi: AI represents a transformative opportunity in India’s journey towards Viksit Bharat 2047. Leveraging AI mindfully, with a strategic lens, helps address deep developmental challenges while creating entirely new economic opportunities, enabling inclusive growth, bridging the urban-rural divide and expanding access to opportunity.
In healthcare, AI is already delivering impact. We are seeing AI-based solutions addressing early detection of tuberculosis, diabetic retinopathy, epilepsy and many other ailments at primary and district health centres.
In education, AI-powered personalised learning platforms in Indian languages are helping students in rural and government schools receive customised academic support.
In a very unique initiative, Amul is leveraging AI to reach 36 lakh women dairy farmers across thousands of villages, providing real-time guidance in Gujarati on cattle health and productivity, empowering grassroots women producers.
In agriculture, the Bharat Vistaar initiative aims to integrate AI into crop advisory, soil analytics and weather intelligence, helping farmers make better, localised decisions.
Even in heritage preservation, AI is enabling the digitisation and interpretation of ancient manuscripts, unlocking India’s civilisational knowledge systems.
At a time when the world is worried about AI deepening divides, India is using it to dissolve divides. We are making it an efficient tool for delivering healthcare, education and economic opportunity to every village, every district, and every citizen.
ANI: In your speech at AI Action Summit 2025 in Paris, you emphasised the bias and limitations of AI. From now and then, has the scenario changed? How do you see India addressing this issue?
PM Narendra Modi: The concerns regarding bias and limitations in AI remain deeply relevant. As AI adoption accelerates, the risks also scale. AI systems can inadvertently perpetuate biases related to gender, language and socio-economic background.
The AI Impact Summit 2026 is bringing together various stakeholders and creating global awareness on matters such as biases and limitations of AI. This is an issue that needs global cooperation.
For India specifically, we face unique challenges and opportunities. Our diversity – linguistic, cultural, regional – means that AI bias can manifest in ways that might not be obvious in Western contexts. An AI system trained primarily on English data or urban contexts may perform poorly for rural users or speakers of regional languages.
The positive development is that India is beginning to address this more systematically. We’re seeing increased focus on creating diverse datasets that represent India’s plurality, greater emphasis on AI development in regional languages, and growing research on fairness and bias in Indian academic institutions and tech companies.
ANI: India’s success in building low-cost Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) like Aadhar and UPI is phenomenal. The convergence of DPI and AI could significantly improve public service delivery. What is India’s learning on this, which could help Global South?
PM Narendra Modi: India’s Digital Public Infrastructure journey offers crucial and practical lessons for the Global South. The convergence of DPI and AI is the next frontier of inclusive development.
Our success with Aadhaar, UPI and other digital public goods was not accidental. It stemmed from a few replicable principles.
First, we built digital infrastructure as a public good, not a proprietary platform. This open and interoperable architecture allowed innovation to flourish on top of a common base layer.
Second, we designed for scale and inclusion from day one. Our systems work for 1.4 billion people, irrespective of their socio-economic status, literacy level, region or language.
When AI is layered onto this foundation, governance can become far more responsive and efficient. AI can improve welfare targeting, strengthen fraud detection, enable predictive maintenance of infrastructure, support urban planning, and enhance transparency in public systems.
At the same time, we understand the importance of robust digital infrastructure, strong data privacy protections, thoughtful regulatory frameworks and AI literacy across society.
With its experience of building a human-centric Digital Public Infrastructure, India is best placed to ensure that AI’s benefits reach the last mile, to farmers in villages, students in small towns, MSMEs, women entrepreneurs, informal workers and youth across rural and urban India, and not remain confined to a narrow urban elite. Technology must serve every citizen, regardless of geography, gender or income.
The goal is not AI adoption for its own sake. It is AI that genuinely empowers citizens and accelerates India’s journey toward becoming a developed nation by 2047, and offers a scalable model for the Global South.
ANI: India is a powerhouse of engineering talent. We contribute a large tech workforce to the world. How could we further deepen this in the AI era?
PM Narendra Modi: India has the talent and entrepreneurial energy to become an AI powerhouse, not just as a consumer, but a creator.
Our startups, research institutions and tech ecosystem can build AI solutions that enhance manufacturing, improve governance and generate new jobs.
I am confident that our youth can build AI solutions for Indian realities, designed for farmers, MSMEs, women entrepreneurs and grassroots innovators.
We remain committed to strengthening every effort by our talented youth to make AI a force-multiplier for innovation and inclusion.
The Union Budget 2026-27 reinforces this vision. It expands support for data centres and cloud infrastructure, strengthening domestic compute capacity.
Under the IndiaAI framework, startups and research institutions are being supported with access to high-performance AI compute resources.
Continued push for semiconductor manufacturing, electronics PLI, AI Centres of Excellence and digital skilling strengthens both hardware and human capital foundations.
In short, we are not just nurturing talent, but we are building the infrastructure, policy ecosystem and skills base required for India to move from participating in the AI revolution to shaping it.
ANI: India has a vibrant IT sector contributing significantly to our service exports. How do you see AI impacting our IT sector? And what are the steps the Government is taking to bolster our IT sector?
PM Narendra Modi: India’s IT sector has been the backbone of our services exports and a key driver of economic growth. AI presents both a tremendous opportunity and a challenge for this sector. AI market projections show India’s IT sector could reach $400 billion by 2030, driven by new waves of AI-enabled outsourcing and domain-specific automation. The fundamental shift is that AI isn’t replacing the IT sector. It is transforming it. While general-purpose AI tools have become widespread, enterprise-grade AI adoption is still concentrated in specific sectors, and incumbent IT firms continue to play crucial roles in solving complex business problems.
To enable a strong Indian AI ecosystem, the government has responded with a comprehensive strategy centered on the IndiaAI Mission. We’ve already exceeded our initial target of GPUs and we are committed to do more, to provide affordable access to world-class AI infrastructure for startups and enterprises.
We have established four Centres of Excellence in Healthcare, Agriculture, Education and Sustainable Cities plus five National Centres of Excellence for Skilling to equip our workforce with industry-relevant AI expertise.
We want our IT sector to lead not just in service delivery but in building AI products, platforms, and solutions that work for India and the world.
ANI: We have seen many examples of AI being misused. How are we ensuring safety of Indians from possible harm of AI technology?
PM Narendra Modi: Technology is a powerful tool, but it is only a force-multiplier for human intent. It is up to us to ensure that it becomes a force for good. While AI may enhance human capabilities, the ultimate responsibility for decision-making must always remain with human beings. Around the world, societies are debating how AI should be used and governed. India is helping shape this conversation by showing that strong safeguards can coexist with continued innovation.
For this, we need a global compact on AI, built upon certain fundamental principles. These should include effective human oversight, safety-by-design, transparency and strict prohibitions on the use of AI for deepfakes, crime and terrorist activities.
India is moving toward a more structured governance approach in AI regulation. With the launch of the IndiaAI Safety Institute in January 2025, the country created a dedicated mechanism to promote the ethical, safe, and responsible deployment of AI systems.
As AI becomes more advanced, our sense of responsibility must grow stronger. What makes India’s approach distinctive is its focus on local risks and societal realities. The emerging risk assessment framework considers national security concerns as well as harms to vulnerable groups, including deepfakes targeting women, child safety risks, and threats affecting the elderly.
The urgency of these safeguards is becoming evident to everyone due to the surge in deepfake videos. In response, India notified rules requiring watermarking of AI-generated content and the removal of harmful synthetic media. Alongside content safeguards, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act strengthens data protection and user rights in the digital ecosystem.
India’s commitment also extends globally. Just as there are global norms in aviation and shipping to ensure safety and accountability across borders, similarly, the world must work towards common principles and standards in AI. Whether through its role in the 2023 GPAI declaration, the Paris AI discussions, or in the current summit, India has consistently advocated a balanced path of advancing innovation while building safeguards for safe and inclusive #AIForAll.
ANI: In some section of youth, there is fear that AI will take away their jobs. India’s demographic dividend will be difficult to harness if that is the case. How is the Government of India tackling this challenge?
PM Modi: I understand the concern of our youth about AI-driven disruptions in the job market. Preparation is the best antidote to fear. That is why we have been investing in skilling and re-skilling our people for an AI-driven future. The Government has launched one of the most ambitious skilling initiatives in the world. We’re not approaching this as a future problem but we’re treating it as a present imperative.
I view AI as a force-multiplier which will further help us push the boundaries of what we thought possible. It will help doctors and teachers and lawyers to reach out to and help a larger group of people.
History has shown that work does not disappear due to technology. Its nature changes and new types of jobs are created. While some jobs may be redefined, digital transformation will also add new tech jobs to India’s economy. For centuries, there have been fears that innovation and technological revolutions will eliminate jobs. Yet history teaches us that whenever innovation happens, new opportunities emerge. The same will be true in the age of AI.
India is already well equipped to adapt to this change. In the Stanford Global AI Vibrancy Index 2025, India ranked 3rd, reflecting strong growth in AI R&D, talent, and economy.
Combining innovation with inclusion, we are confident that AI will strengthen India’s workforce. With the right skills and preparation, our youth will lead the future of work.
ANI: Under your leadership, India has developed indigenous technologies such as 4 G and 5 G, as well as drone technology. What is your vision on AI for Aatmanirbhar Bharat?
PM Narendra Modi: Our journey toward Aatmanirbhar Bharat has been built on a fundamental principle: India must not just consume technology but create it. My vision for AI in Aatmanirbhar Bharat rests on three pillars: sovereignty, inclusivity, and innovation.
My vision is that India should be among the top three AI superpowers globally, not just in the consumption of AI but in creation. Our AI models will be deployed worldwide, serving billions in their native languages. Our AI startups will be valued in hundreds of billions, creating millions of high-quality jobs.
Our AI-powered public services will be studied globally as benchmarks for efficient, equitable governance. And most importantly, every Indian will experience AI as an enabler of opportunity, a multiplier of capability, and a servant of human dignity, not as a threat to their livelihood or an instrument of control.
Aatmanirbhar Bharat in AI means India writing its own code for the digital century, and through the IndiaAI Mission, we are ensuring that code reflects our values, serves our people, and positions India as a responsible AI leader for the world.
