The India AI Impact Summit, 2026, to be hosted in New Delhi, must be more than a hum of triumphalism. The gathering of 300 exhibitors from 30 countries across more than 10 thematic pavilions is poised to cause a tectonic shift in the modern-day AI landscape. It is the first time that 15 Heads of State, 40+ Ministers, over 100 leading CEOs and CXOs, and more than 100 eminent academics from the global north and global south are coming together in New Delhi to calibrate the “moral compass” of artificial intelligence.
The tech-enthusiasts and AI-ethicists are familiar with the glittering AI trajectory. There is also familiarity with doomsday prophecies from Yuval Noah Harari and other leading scholars. Both polarities echo in every AI Summit and discussion. Rather, this time the focus must be on the moral compass by which global south has to navigate the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence. The utility of the summit must be assessed based on the questions it confronts rather than celebratory notes of the technocrats and CEOs. The questions are as, Progress for whom? Progress at what cost? Progress with whose data?
India has set the right tone to navigate the discussion in this direction, and the reflection can be seen in the mantra, ‘from Vision to Action’, coupled with three sutras: People, Planet, and Progress. The AI Impact summit also fosters the discussion on the same line through seven chakras (themes), i.e., spanning human capital, inclusion, trust, resilience, science, resources, and social good, translating guiding sutras in areas of action.
THE FIRST SUTRA: PEOPLE’S DIGNITY
In 2026, the AI divide is the new challenge. The world has not yet adequately responded to the question of the digital divide between the global north and south, and is grappling with the challenge of the AI Divide. The manifestations of the divided can be brazenly seen in education, justice and innovation. The global north is relying on strong safety guardrails, arguably to prevent a digital catastrophe. The global south is asking an immediate question. Who does this technology serve?
Two among the seven chakras are Human Capital and Inclusion. The AI, being a disruptive technology, has the potential to affect employment at the large scale. The tremors are being felt across industries. This cuts across the question of livelihood and to ensure human dignity, proactive skilling, adaptive institutions, and forward-looking policies are the need of the hour. At this time, the focus must to prioritize the models that augment human agency rather than the ones that replace human necessity.
Agentic accountability must be ensured, making AI the digital co-worker. To democratise the technology and upskill the traditional workers, the cultural representation must be ensured in the model training. The models must be trained on local datasets in vernacular languages. This also prevents the possibility of algorithmic cultural colonialism. Human dignity is non-negotiable for global south in the pursuit of AI advancement.
THE SECOND SUTRA: PLANET AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL COST OF INTELLIGENCE
There is a clear environmental paradox in training AI models and cooling data centres. There is a plethora of academic literature claiming AI to be the environmental saviour, vis-à-vis presenting the alternate view. The paradox is evident. The ideals an energy-hungry AI to be used to address the concerns of climate change and the reduction in dependency on non-renewable sources of energy. Goldman Sachs Research forecasts global power demand from data centres will increase 160% by 2030 and by as much as 166% by the end of the decade.
The summit must take this occasion to condemn the practices of green washing and be an adequate forum to raise the voice for green scaling through frugal innovation and predictive environmental management. The carbon footprint in training the model must be the ultimate criterion for model training and not be the concern afterwards. There must be a red line in resource extraction and fuel consumption in model training.
THE THIRD SUTRA: PROGRESS AS AN EQUITABLE ENGINE
The narrow definition of GDP growth is getting redundant. The narrow growth is being replaced by equitable growth, which includes democratising compute and data. The technological democratisation must be in the global south as well, and can be suitably done through technology sharing.
AI by HER and YUVAI are two flagship initiatives under the IndiaAI mission. Both initiatives are culminating in the India AI Impact Summit, 2026, designed to foster inclusive AI growth and use tech-solutions for social good. As the name suggests, the AI Summit aims to make its flagship initiatives gender inclusive and generational. This is a gendered and generational model presented to the world with a subtle message that an impoverished vision of growth must be replaced by inclusion, distribution, resilience, and the strengthening of the societal fabric. The tough question is whether AI reduces or increases global inequality?
The summit carries the historic burden. From 16th to 20th February 2026, the air will be thick in New Delhi, making it a perfect occasion to champion the cause of global south in front of the Global North and South, in parallel. The AI boom is powered by the resources of global south, but the narratives of global south remain sidelined by corporate and power. This summit must be taken as an occasion to make narratives of global south, a global AI narrative.
It is an occasion to remind the world that the world is at a breakthrough movement, where the engineers are not just coding the software, but rather defining the future of the social contract. The world must establish interoperable ethical standards, having moral compass, make AI a means of public good, not a monopoly of a few.
Pranjal is a Doctoral Research Fellow at Bennett University (The Times Group)
