India is set to host the fourth global AI summit in New Delhi on Monday, bringing together world leaders and tech CEOs to debate innovation, governance, and safety, amid rising concerns over misinformation, deepfakes, and accountability in artificial intelligence development.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is inaugurating the Summit 2026, the fourth edition of the annual gathering. Previous meetings were held in France, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. This is the first time the summit is being hosted by a developing country.
More than 250,000 visitors are expected to attend, alongside 20 national leaders and 45 ministerial-level delegations.
Among those scheduled to participate are French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Technology leaders, including Sam Altman of OpenAI and Google’s Sundar Pichai, are also on the guest list.
Ahead of the event, India’s IT ministry said, “The summit will shape a shared vision for AI that truly serves the many, not just the few.”
In a post on X on Monday, Modi wrote, “The AI Impact Summit will enrich global discourse on diverse aspects of AI, such as innovation, collaboration, responsible use, and more.”
He added, “From digital public infrastructure to a vibrant StartUp ecosystem and cutting-edge research, our strides in AI reflect both ambition and responsibility.”
India has climbed to third place in global AI competitiveness rankings calculated by Stanford University researchers, behind only the United States and China.
Officials say the country’s growing digital infrastructure and start-up ecosystem have positioned it as a key player in shaping the future of AI.
The summit comes at a time of heightened global concern about the risks posed by artificial intelligence, including misinformation, disinformation, and deepfake content.
Last month, Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok faced backlash over the generation of sexualised images of real people using simple text prompts.
Most of the images generated were of women, including some of children, intensifying debate over safeguards and platform responsibility.
In November, India released AI Governance Guidelines outlining core principles of trust, safety, equity, and innovation over restraint.
However, in January, the government tightened rules for social media platforms, requiring them to clearly label what it calls “synthetically generated information.”
This week’s summit is being held under the slogan “people, progress, planet,” reflecting an effort to frame AI development within broader social and environmental goals.
Yet some critics question whether meaningful regulatory progress will emerge from the gathering.
Industry commitments made at previous events “have largely been narrow ‘self-regulatory’ frameworks that position AI companies to continue to grade their own homework,” said Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute.
Kak, who is attending the summit, said she doubts whether leaders would take any meaningful steps to hold AI giants accountable.
The New Delhi meeting is expected to focus not only on innovation and competitiveness but also on job security, child safety, and responsible deployment of AI technologies.
Governments worldwide are grappling with how to balance rapid technological development with concerns about automation, privacy, and the misuse of generative systems.
For India, hosting the summit represents both a diplomatic milestone and an opportunity to position itself as a bridge between advanced and developing economies in shaping global AI governance.
Whether the event will produce concrete regulatory outcomes or remain a platform for dialogue remains to be seen, but the scale of participation reaffirms the central role artificial intelligence now plays in global policy and economic strategy.
