New Delhi, 19 February (H.S.): Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the India AI Impact Summit 2026 at Bharat Mandapam on Thursday, declaring that artificial intelligence's future must rest on transparency, accountability, and human welfare, transforming it from a tool for select nations or companies into a medium for Sarvajan Hitaya, Sarvajan Sukhaya – welfare and happiness for all.

New Delhi Frontier AI Commitments

Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw announced the New Delhi Frontier AI Impact Commitments, a voluntary framework adopted by global and Indian AI firms to make AI inclusive, multilingual, and development-oriented. These pledges focus on evidence-based policies for data-driven jobs and economic transformation, alongside culturally robust, multilingual AI models, underscoring India's leadership for the Global South.

PM's MANAV Vision and Challenges

Presenting India's MANAV vision for human-centric AI, PM Modi warned of opportunities alongside risks like deepfakes, advocating mandatory digital labeling similar to food products to discern truth from falsehood. He emphasized granting AI an open sky under human command, democratizing it for developing nations, and preventing humans from becoming mere data sources—positioning AI as empowerment rather than subjugation.

India's AI Destiny and Ecosystem

India proudly views AI not as a threat but as fortune and future, building robust ecosystems from semiconductor manufacturing to quantum computing, bolstered by secure data centers, IT infrastructure, dynamic startups, diversity, youth, and democracy.

PM Modi invited the world: Design and Develop in India. Deliver to the World. Deliver to Humanity, highlighting three Indian companies launching AI models and apps showcasing youth talent and diversity in agriculture, security, disability aid, and multilingual solutions.

Macron's Praise and Unity Call

French President Emmanuel Macron lauded India's digital feats—1.4 billion Aadhaar IDs, UPI billions of transactions, digital health certificates—as a civilizational story. He urged unity in the strategic AI race, rejecting viewing nations as mere markets or data sources, pushing multilingual AI, child protection via social media bans under 15 (with India joining), and Franco-Indian collaboration for humanity's benefit, ending with Jai Ho.

Guterres on Inclusive Governance

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres thanked PM Modi for hosting the Global South's first AI summit, insisting AI's future cannot rest with a handful of nations or billionaires but demands universal participation. He cited UN initiatives: an independent AI scientific panel with 40 experts and global AI governance dialogue, proposing a $3 billion fund (under 1% of one tech firm's revenue) for skills, data, affordable computing, and inclusivity to achieve SDGs in health, education, food security, and climate action—while mitigating inequality, bias, harm, energy demands, job displacement, and unregulated child exposure.

Industry Titans' Endorsements

Tata Group Chairman N. Chandrasekaran hailed India’s digital infrastructure paving AI as the next steam engine or internet revolution. Reliance's Mukesh Ambani termed the summit pivotal for Viksit Bharat 2047, likening AI to Mahabharata's inexhaustible Akshaya Patra to eradicate poverty; Jio will lead AI transformation leveraging India's data usage, Aadhaar, UPI, and startups.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted India as AI's largest market with net-positive jobs; Anthropic's Dario Amodei praised India's energy, Bengaluru office, and Infosis partnerships; Aleph India’s Serge Raffard called for universal access.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar