Right now, as you read this, the most powerful people in artificial intelligence are sitting in New Delhi. Sundar Pichai. Sam Altman. Dario Amodei. Demis Hassabis. Bill Gates. Yann LeCun. Yoshua Bengio. Over 40 CEOs and 20 heads of state, gathered at Bharat Mandapam for the India AI Impact Summit 2026.
When every major tech CEO simultaneously clears their calendar for the same destination, something significant is happening. And what's happening in Delhi this week is a quiet power shift that will affect how AI gets built, deployed, and regulated for the next decade.
Why India, Why Now
The easy answer is market size. India has 700 million internet users. That number is still growing. The country produces close to 20% of the world's data. It has the second-largest AI workforce globally. For companies burning through billions in AI development costs, India is where the customers are.
But market size alone does not explain why every major AI lab cleared their schedule. China has comparable numbers, and these CEOs are not holding a joint summit in Beijing.
What makes India different is the combination of scale, accessibility, and regulatory leverage. India can plausibly become the country that sets the template for AI governance across the Global South. The decisions made in Delhi will influence policy in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. When 100+ countries are watching, getting India right matters far more than any single market would suggest.
The summit structure reflects this ambition. Three organizing principles called "Sutras" (People, Planet, Progress) branch into seven working groups covering AI safety, skills development, social inclusion, scientific research, sustainable computing, democratized access, and economic growth. Over 700 session proposals were submitted. The GPAI Council meets on the final day. This is infrastructure for ongoing governance, not a photo opportunity.
The Money Is Already Moving
Microsoft has committed $17.5 billion to build AI infrastructure in India over four years. That is not speculative interest. That is concrete capital deployed.
Anthropic hired former Microsoft India MD Irina Ghose to lead their local operations. OpenAI has established a dedicated India sales team. Google has partnered with the government and Physics Wallah to push AI in education. These moves predate the summit. The executives flying to Delhi are not exploring opportunities. They are protecting investments already made and negotiating the terms of expansion.
The hardware side is equally active. India's 21-year tax holiday for data centers has Nvidia monitoring the market closely. The semiconductor supply chain is shifting, and India wants a piece of it.
When I wrote about the $700 billion AI infrastructure buildout, I focused on the hyperscalers: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta. But infrastructure requires location decisions. Power, cooling, land, talent, regulatory environment. India is making an aggressive play to capture a significant share of that buildout.
What the Global South Frame Actually Means
This is the first major AI summit hosted in the Global South. That framing is intentional.
Previous AI governance conversations have been centered in the US, UK, and EU. Bletchley Park. Brussels. San Francisco. The implicit assumption: the wealthy nations that built the technology will decide how it gets governed. Everyone else adapts.
India is rejecting that frame. With 1.4 billion people, a massive and growing tech workforce, and increasing influence in global forums, India can make a credible claim to co-author the rules rather than follow them.
The attendee list validates this positioning. When Macron and Lula show up alongside the tech CEOs, when the UN Secretary-General participates, when 100+ countries send delegations, the message is clear: AI governance is now a global conversation, and Delhi is one of the rooms where it happens.
For companies building AI products, this matters operationally. If India sets strong data localization requirements, that shapes architecture decisions. If India's AI safety framework becomes influential across the Global South, products need to be built with those standards in mind from day one. Retrofitting compliance across half the world's population is expensive. Understanding where regulation is heading is now a core business need.
The Geopolitics Behind the Tech
The summit happens against a specific geopolitical backdrop that does not get discussed enough in tech coverage.
The US-China AI competition has created an awkward gap. Companies cannot fully access the Chinese market. Chinese companies face export restrictions on advanced chips. The world's two largest AI powers are partially decoupled from each other.
India sits in that gap. It is not aligned with China. It has strong trade relationships with the US. But it is also not fully subordinate to US interests. India can work with American companies while maintaining relationships with Russia, the Middle East, and Africa that the US cannot.
For AI companies, India represents something rare: a massive market that is both accessible and strategically non-aligned. Building in India does not require choosing sides in the US-China competition. That flexibility has value.
The same dynamic applies to regulation. An AI governance framework that emerges from India will not be seen as American rule-making imposed on the rest of the world. It will have legitimacy in contexts where US or EU regulation might be resisted. This is why tech companies are engaging seriously with the Delhi summit rather than treating it as a secondary market exercise.
What Actually Gets Decided
The summit runs through February 20. The concrete outcomes will matter more than the speeches.
The government will release an AI Compendium documenting AI applications in healthcare, agriculture, education, energy, and gender empowerment. This is less exciting than it sounds, but it establishes the baseline for what India considers successful AI deployment. That baseline will influence policy.
The working groups covering AI safety and scientific research will produce recommendations. These will not have immediate regulatory force, but they will shape the conversation. When India's AI policy crystallizes (and it will), the summit's working group outputs will be reference points.
Prime Minister Modi's one-on-one meetings with 35-40 corporate leaders will be where the actual deals get made. Microsoft's $17.5 billion commitment did not happen at a plenary session. It happened in a room. The meetings happening this week will produce similar commitments, partnerships, and regulatory understandings. We will hear about them in the coming months.
The Competition for AI Governance
A larger pattern is emerging. Different regions are racing to establish themselves as AI governance centers, each hoping their framework becomes the global default.
The EU has GDPR and the AI Act. The approach is precautionary, focused on rights and restrictions. It has influenced corporate behavior globally but faces criticism for potentially slowing innovation.
The US has fragmented federal regulation and strong industry self-governance. The approach is permissive, focused on letting companies move fast. It produces the most capable models but also the most visible harms.
China has state-directed AI development with tight content controls. The approach is nationalist, focused on using AI to strengthen the state. It is highly effective domestically but not exportable.
India is positioning a fourth path: AI governance that prioritizes inclusion and development without the EU's restrictions or China's authoritarianism. If India can demonstrate that this approach produces both economic growth and social benefits, it becomes attractive to the dozens of countries watching from the sidelines.
The summit is where India makes its case. And the fact that every major AI CEO showed up suggests the case is being taken seriously.
What I Am Watching
From my perspective as someone who runs AI agents daily, the most interesting signal from Delhi is the emphasis on practical deployment.
The AI Compendium, the case studies in healthcare and agriculture, the focus on skills development: these are not abstract governance concerns. They are about getting AI into actual use. India is not trying to slow AI down. It is trying to make AI work for a billion people.
This is different from the conversations happening in Washington or Brussels, where the focus often skews toward risk mitigation. India's frame is opportunity capture. How do we get the benefits of AI to farmers, students, and healthcare workers? How do we build the workforce to support AI deployment? How do we ensure that AI development happens in India, not just for India?
If this frame proves successful, if India can demonstrate large-scale beneficial AI deployment, it will influence how other developing nations approach the technology. That is a bigger deal than any single regulatory decision.
EU Approach
Rights-focused, precautionary. Strong on protection, criticized for slowing innovation. Exportable via market access requirements.
US Approach
Industry-led, permissive. Produces leading capabilities and visible harms. Exportable via company dominance.
India Approach
Development-focused, pragmatic. Aims for scale deployment and economic benefit. Potentially exportable to Global South.
The Week That Shapes the Decade
Summits come and go. Most produce communiques that nobody reads and commitments that nobody keeps. This one feels different.
The concentration of AI leadership is unprecedented. The investment discussions are concrete. The regulatory stakes are real. India has both the scale and the positioning to influence how AI develops globally, and the country is making a deliberate play for that influence.
For anyone building AI products, the message is clear: India is not a secondary market. It is a primary regulatory jurisdiction. What gets decided in Delhi this week will shape compliance requirements, market access conditions, and deployment strategies for years to come.
The CEOs understand this. That is why they are in New Delhi instead of anywhere else.
The rest of us should pay attention too.
The India AI Impact Summit 2026 runs from February 16-20 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. Updates will be posted on the official summit site as sessions conclude.
