India AI Impact Summit starts Feb 16, 2026 in New Delhi with key participants like Sundar Pichai, Jensen Huang, Bill Gates, Mukesh Ambani, Nandan Nilekani. PM Modi inaugurates global AI powerhouse event.
India AI Impact Summit kicks off February 16-20, 2026 in New Delhi, positioning India as the global AI stage with PM Narendra Modi inaugurating and nearly 50 heads of state converging alongside tech titans. Hosted under the IndiaAI Mission by MeitY, this five-day powerhouse expects 50,000+ attendees debating equitable AI growth, sustainability, and social impact—perfect timing as Mumbai’s digital marketers eye AI tools for SEO dominance. Key participants read like an AI hall of fame, blending Silicon Valley CEOs with Indian industry heavyweights.
India AI Impact Summit Headline Speakers
Global tech royalty dominates: Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang headline alongside Microsoft President Brad Smith, with OpenAI’s Dario Amodei representing frontier models. Bill Gates joins confirmed via IT Secretary S Krishnan, while Cristiano Amon (Qualcomm), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), and FedEx’s Raj Subramaniam round out CEO firepower. VCs like Vinod Khosla add investment angles.
India shines brightest: Mukesh Ambani (Reliance), Nandan Nilekani (Infosys co-founder), Salil Parekh (Infosys CEO), Sunil Bharti Mittal (Bharti), BVR Mohan Reddy (Cyient), and C Vijayakumar (HCLTech CEO) anchor local muscle. Sanjay Sharma (Google India) and Pallavi Mahajan (Nokia AI Officer) bridge global ops.
Academic and Research Luminaries
AI godfathers assemble: Yoshua Bengio (Mila), Fei-Fei Li (Stanford), Yann LeCun (NYU/Meta AI), Pushmeet Kohli (Google DeepMind), Sara Hooker (Adaption Labs), and Prof. Alice Oh (KAIST) tackle ethics and breakthroughs. Prof. Fei Fei Lee, Prof. Alison Noble (Oxford), Prof. Somesh Jha (Wisconsin), and African AI voice Prof. Vukosi Marivate (Pretoria) ensure diverse perspectives.
MIT’s Eric Grimson, Harvard’s Carme Artigas, and CMU’s robotics prof join for policy depth.
Industry Power Players and Innovators
Enterprise heavy-hitters include Harshil Mathur (Razorpay CEO), Prativa Mohapatra (Adobe India MD), Roy Jakobs (Philips CEO), Natalie Black (Schneider Electric), and Giordano Albertazzi (Vertiv CEO). Erik Ekudden (Ericsson CTO), Mustafa Furniturewala (Coursera CTO), and Rahul Singh (HCLTech) cover telco, edtech, infrastructure.
Startups and specialists: Sameer Jain (Net Solutions), Ibrahim Hafeezur Rehman (NAMTECH), Ruchika Panesar (NatWest CDIO), Victoria Espinel (BSA CEO).
India AI Impact Summit Agenda Highlights
Feb 16-18: Exhibitions showcase AI stacks—multinationals demo products, India flexes sovereign stacks amid China partnership debut. MeitY’s Abhishek Singh eyes “democratizing AI resources.”
Feb 19-20: Policy plenaries with heads of state; themes span healthcare, agriculture, sustainability—echoing Paris AI Action Summit lineage.
Key Stats: 100+ countries, 50 CEOs, 50k footfall. China joins as partner nation for foundational models alignment.
Local Impact for Tech Pros
Mumbai attendees: Network with Razorpay’s Mathur for fintech AI, Reliance’s Ambani for Jio Platforms plays, HCLTech’s Vijayakumar for enterprise deals. SEO specialists gain from Pichai/Nilekani talks on search evolution, vernacular models. Register via impact.indiaai.gov.in—passes tiered for access.
| Category | Standout Names | Focus Areas |
|---|---|---|
| Global CEOs | Pichai, Huang, Gates, Amon | Infrastructure, scaling |
| Indian Titans | Ambani, Nilekani, Parekh | Sovereign AI, enterprise |
| AI Pioneers | Bengio, LeCun, Fei-Fei Li | Ethics, breakthroughs |
| Enterprise | Mathur, Mohapatra, Jakobs | Applications, adoption |
