From Bletchley to Bharat: 5 Ways the India AI Impact Summit Just Changed the Global Tech Map

The dust has settled on the India AI Impact Summit 2026but the ripples are just beginning. With over 500,000 participants and investment pledges crossing $250 billionthe event proved that the future of AI isn’t just being written in Silicon Valley—it’s being coded in India.

1. PM Modi Unveils the ‘MANAV’ Vision

In a keynote address translated in real-time into sign language by AI, Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced his MANAV (Human) Vision. He challenged the “confidential” development of AI by Western giants, calling for an Open-Source Revolution.

M – Moral and Ethical Systems A – Accountable Governance N – National Sovereignty A – Accessible and Inclusive V – Valid and Legitimate

2. Desi “Meta Ray-Ban” Rival: Sarvam Kaze Smartglasses

The breakout star of the expo was Sarvam AIwhich launched the Kaze Smartglasses. PM Modi was the first to demo the device, which is designed specifically for Indian languages. Unlike global competitors, Kaze is built to handle local dialects and works with Sarvam Edgean AI model that runs locally on the glasses without needing a data center.

3. A Guinness World Record for Responsibility

While tech summits often focus on speed, India focused on ethics. In a staggering 24-hour window (Feb 16–17), India set a Guinness World Record for the most pledges received for an AI responsibility campaign. Over 250,946 valid pledges were logged, with a massive turnout from students committing to ethical AI use.

4. BharatGen Param2: The New Gold Standard for Multilingual AI

The summit saw the launch of Param2a 17-billion parameter model from the government-backed BharatGen consortium.

• Linguistic Power: Supports all 22 official Indian languages.
• Efficiency: Uses a “Mixture of Experts” (MoE) architecture, making it faster and cheaper to run than massive trillion-parameter models.
• Sovereignty: Trained entirely on Indian datasets and local GPU infrastructure.

5. The $250 Billion “Deep-Tech” Blitz

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that global confidence in India has reached an all-time high, with $20 billion in deep-tech venture commitments alone. Tech titans like Sundar Pichai (Google), Sam Altman (OpenAI)and Dario Amodei (Anthropic) were seen in high-level roundtables, discussing how to integrate India’s digital public infrastructure with global AI stacks.

The Controversy Corner

The event wasn’t without its drama. A “robot dog” presented as indigenous by Galgotias University was outed by social media sleuths as a Chinese Unitree Go2, leading to the university being asked to vacate its stall. Meanwhile, logistical “security lockdowns” for VIP visits left some delegates stranded—a growing pain for an event that far exceeded its expected attendance.

What’s Next? The torch now passes to Geneva, Switzerlandfor the 2027 AI Impact Summitwhere the focus will likely shift to global regulatory frameworks based on the “Delhi Declaration.”