India AI Impact Summit 2026: Scale, Strategy and the Shaping of Global AI Governance

by Zen Webnet | Feb 14, 2026 | BLOG, In the news

New Delhi, 14 February 2026
By Tannaz Ahmed and Tushar Gandhi

The upcoming India AI Impact Summit 2026 is emerging as one of the most important global technology gatherings of the year. Positioned at the intersection of geopolitics, innovation and governance, the summit reflects India’s growing ambition to shape the next phase of global artificial intelligence policy and deployment.

Beyond its scale, the summit’s significance lies in its attempt to bridge advanced AI economies with emerging markets, placing India at the center of an evolving, multi-polar AI ecosystem.

Scale and Global Participation

The summit is expected to draw participation from more than 100 countries, alongside over 100 global CEOs, policymakers, researchers and investors. Registrations have reportedly crossed 35,000, underscoring the high level of global interest.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to inaugurate the summit, signalling strong political ownership. Confirmed or widely expected heads of state and senior leaders include:

• President Emmanuel Macron (France)
• President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil)
• UN Secretary-General António Guterres

The United States delegation will be led by Michael Kratsios, Assistant to the U.S. President and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). China is expected to participate through a senior government and AI research delegation, adding a notable dimension to regional and global technology diplomacy.

Additional high-level representation is anticipated from countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Global South, reinforcing the summit’s positioning as a broad multilateral platform.

Corporate Leadership and Technology Representation

The summit is also expected to convene the most influential leaders in global AI and digital infrastructure, including:

• Sam Altman (OpenAI)
• Jensen Huang (NVIDIA)
• Sundar Pichai (Google & Alphabet)
• Alexandr Wang (Scale AI)
• Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind)
• Dario Amodei (Anthropic)
• Julie Sweet (Accenture)
• Cristiano Amon (Qualcomm)
• Nikesh Arora (Palo Alto Networks)
• Matthew Prince (Cloudflare)

Strong domestic industry participation is expected from leaders such as Mukesh Ambani, Nandan Nilekani, and Sunil Bharti Mittal, reflecting India’s private sector engagement across telecom, digital infrastructure and enterprise technology.

The presence of leading AI model developers, chip manufacturers, cybersecurity firms, and cloud providers signals that discussions will extend beyond policy frameworks to infrastructure, compute access, and commercial deployment.

Expo and Ecosystem Participation

The India AI Impact Expo component is expected to feature over 400 exhibitors, spanning AI infrastructure providers, enterprise solution companies, research institutions and startups.

This positions the summit not only as a diplomatic and policy dialogue platform, but also as a commercial showcase for:

• Foundational and domain-specific AI models
• Data center and compute infrastructure
• AI applications in health, agriculture, finance and governance
• Startup innovation from India and emerging markets

Emerging Policy Themes and Collaboration Tracks

Beyond keynote speeches and CEO roundtables, the summit’s working sessions are expected to focus on structural questions shaping the global AI ecosystem:

1.  AI Infrastructure Cooperation

Discussions are anticipated around compute collaboration, semiconductor supply chains, and data center investments particularly in the context of reducing supply-chain concentration risks.

2. Responsible and Safe AI Standards

Countries are expected to explore common minimum standards for safety, transparency, and accountability in AI deployment, with particular emphasis on inclusive and human-centric approaches.

3. Workforce and Skilling Partnerships

Joint initiatives on AI education, digital skilling and research exchanges are likely to form part of bilateral and multilateral discussions.

4. Global South Cooperation

A prominent thread is expected to center on inclusive AI frameworks tailored to emerging economies, positioning India as a convenor for Global South engagement in AI governance.

Several bilateral meetings on the sidelines are expected to result in Memoranda of Understandings (MoUs) or framework agreements in areas such as AI infrastructure, education, research collaboration and innovation partnerships.

Strategic Positioning: Beyond a Conference

The summit reflects a broader strategic calculation: AI governance is increasingly shaped through coalitions rather than singular blocs. By convening Western economies, emerging markets, and major AI corporations under one platform, India is positioning itself as a bridge actor in a fragmented global technology landscape.

The presence of both U.S. and Chinese delegations, alongside European and Global South leaders, underscores the summit’s geopolitical dimension. It is positioned not merely a technology forum, but where standards, partnerships and long-term take shape.

Overall Assessment

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 signals India’s intention to move from being a large AI market to becoming a central node in global AI governance and deployment.

Its success, however, will be measured less by attendance figures and more by tangible outcomes:

• Durable partnerships on AI infrastructure
• Alignment on responsible AI standards
• Concrete skilling and research collaborations
• A clearer roadmap for inclusive AI growth

If effectively executed, the summit could mark a shift toward a more distributed and coalition-based AI order, one in which India plays a defining role in shaping both the rules and the applications of the next technological era.

NITI Aayog Flags Rising Trade Deficit with FTA Partners in Q1 FY26

by Zen Webnet | Dec 31, 2025 | BLOG, In the news

New Delhi, 6 February 2026
By Tannaz Ahmed and Tushar Gandhi

NITI Aayog’s Trade Watch Quarterly for Q1 FY26 (April–June 2026)[1] offers a detailed snapshot of India’s trade performance at a time of moderate global recovery. While the report carries a thematic focus on automotive exports, a key insight lies in its assessment of India’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and their evolving impact on trade outcomes.

Rather than revisiting the case for FTAs in principle, the quarterly examines how existing agreements are performing in practice, raising important questions about sequencing, competitiveness, and alignment with domestic production capacity.

Trade Context and FTA Exposure

In Q1 FY26, India’s total merchandise and services trade reached USD 439 billion, registering 3.5% year-on-year growth. Services exports continued to anchor overall trade performance, expanding by 10% and generating a USD 48 billion surplus, which partially offset pressures on the merchandise trade balance.

Within this broader trade context, the report notes a widening trade deficit with FTA partners, drawing attention to the evolving balance between imports and exports under existing preferential trade arrangements.

Rising Trade Deficit with FTA Partners

A key finding of the quarterly is a 59.2% year-on-year increase in India’s trade deficit with FTA partners during April–June. The widening gap reflects import growth outpacing exports, indicating that preferential market access has translated unevenly into export outcomes across sectors.

The report highlights uneven performance across FTA partner regions, including parts of ASEAN, where export growth has lagged relative to import expansion. These patterns underscore the need to examine how sectoral competitiveness and production capabilities interact with preferential trade frameworks, rather than attributing outcomes solely to the presence of FTAs.

FTAs and Structural Competitiveness

Rather than framing the FTA deficit as a short-term imbalance, the Trade Watch Quarterly places it within a broader structural context:

• Import growth from FTA partners is concentrated in intermediate and capital goods, consistent with India’s participation in global value chains.
• Export underperformance highlights the need to assess domestic competitiveness and export readiness across sectors.

This framing suggests that FTA trade outcomes draw attention to factors influencing production and export readiness, rather than market access alone.

Sectoral Signals from FTA Trade

The report highlights notable shifts in export composition that interact with FTA outcomes. Electronics exports grew 47% year-on-year, accounting for over 11% of total exports, underscoring India’s expanding role in technology-intensive value chains.

In contrast, traditional export drivers such as petroleum products saw relative decline. This divergence indicates that FTA benefits are more likely to result in sectors where India is integrated into global production networks, rather than in legacy commodity-driven exports.

Automotive Focus as an FTA Case Study

Although the report’s thematic section focuses on automotive exports, its relevance to FTAs is broader. The analysis points to India’s strong performance in auto components and select vehicle categories, alongside underexploited potential in passenger vehicles within the USD 2.2 trillion global automotive market.

From an FTA perspective, the automotive chapter illustrates how preferential access alone is insufficient without parallel improvements in competitiveness, standards alignment, and integration into global value chains. FTAs, in this sense, function as enablers but only where domestic capabilities are aligned with global standards.

Policy Implications for Future FTAs

The Trade Watch Quarterly implicitly calls for a recalibration of India’s FTA strategy, shifting the focus from coverage to performance. Key policy signals include:

• The need to sequence FTAs alongside industrial and supply-chain policies, rather than treating them as standalone trade instruments.
• Greater emphasis on tariff rationalisation and two-way trade, ensuring that imports support competitiveness rather than displacing domestic production.
• Aligning FTA outcomes with broader manufacturing and services competitiveness.

The report also underscores the importance of execution capacity, both at the policy and firm levels, in determining whether FTAs translate into sustainable export gains.

What the Quarterly Does Not Address

While the report provides a granular assessment of FTA-related trade outcomes, it does not delve into renegotiation timelines, safeguard mechanisms, or investment chapters within FTAs. Its focus remains on trade performance rather than treaty design, leaving open questions about how future agreements will incorporate lessons from current deficits.

Overall Assessment

The Q1 FY26 Trade Watch Quarterly presents a nuanced view of India’s FTA experience. The sharp rise in the trade deficit with FTA partners serves as a warning against assuming automatic gains from preferential access, while sectoral successes highlight where FTAs can work when backed by competitiveness and scale.

For policymakers and stakeholders, the message is clear: FTAs must be embedded within a broader strategy of production upgrading, value-chain integration, and execution discipline. As India continues to negotiate and recalibrate its trade agreements, the effectiveness of FTAs will depend less on their number and more on how well they align with domestic capabilities and long-term trade objectives.

[1] Trade Watch Quarterly for Q1 FY26 (April–June 2026)