By Munsif Vengattil
NEW DELHI, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Top executives from global AI giants will join several world leaders in New Delhi this week for a major artificial intelligence summit, at a time when India is trying to lure more investment in the industry.
The country is emerging as a hotspot for AI firms, with Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft and Amazon already committing a combined $68 billion in AI and cloud infrastructure investment up to 2030.
Indian officials are positioning the India AI Impact Summit, which started on Monday, as a platform to amplify the voices of developing nations in global AI governance. Delhi marks the first time the global event is being held in the developing world.
“The theme of the summit is … welfare for all, happiness for all, reflecting our shared commitment to harnessing Artificial Intelligence for human-centric progress,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X.
Key speakers at the summit include Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani, and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis who will address the event on Thursday.
Modi is also set to share the stage that day with French President Emmanuel Macron, who is visiting India as part of a broader bilateral trip.
Large banners promoting the summit, featuring Modi’s portrait, have been hung along Delhi’s main roads in the kind of public relations blitz for which the prime minister has become known.
India, which has yet to produce a globally dominant frontier AI model to rival those from the U.S. or China, is betting that its competitive edge lies in large-scale deployment rather than development of foundational models.
India’s Economic Survey, released last month, urged the government to focus on “application-led innovation” rather than chasing frontier-scale mega-models.
The strategy is backed by significant domestic adoption: with more than 72 million daily ChatGPT users by late 2025, India has already become OpenAI’s largest user market.
But rapid AI adoption is also threatening jobs in India’s $283 billion IT sector, with investment bank Jefferies predicting call centres could face a 50% revenue hit from AI adoption by 2030.
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Previous global AI summits, at Bletchley Park in the UK in 2023, Seoul in 2024 and Paris in 2025, were dominated by safety commitments, voluntary corporate pledges and governance declarations, though critics said they produced few enforceable outcomes.
More than 250,000 visitors are expected at the India summit, with more than 300 exhibitors across a 70,000-square-metre expo held at Bharat Mandapam, a $300 million mega convention complex.
The influx of thousands of international delegates has sent Delhi’s luxury hotel prices skyrocketing, stoking surprise on social media. A suite at the Taj Palace that normally costs about $2,200 per night was listed last week at more than $33,000.
India’s Supreme Court issued a circular on Saturday saying advocates could appear via video conferencing during the summit week, citing anticipated traffic congestion around the court in connection with the event.
(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Kate Mayberry)
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