The AI Impact Summit is a series of international, high-level global convenings on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The India AI Impact Summit 2026, held in New Delhi from February 16 to 21, 2026, was the fourth in this series and the first hosted by a Global South nation. The series originated with the Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit in the UK in 2023, followed by the AI Seoul Summit in 2024 and the AI Action Summit in Paris in 2025. The India summit was organized by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under the IndiaAI Mission. It was created to address the widening "Global AI Divide" and shift the focus from governance to implementation and measurable outcomes for developing nations.
The summit's key outcome was the New Delhi Declaration, signed by 88 countries and international organizations, which stresses that AI's benefits must be shared by humanity. India advanced its vision for AI, known as M.A.N.A.V., which stands for Moral and Ethical Systems, Accountable Governance, National Sovereignty, Accessible and Inclusive AI, and Valid and Legitimate Systems. Voluntary initiatives announced include the Charter for the Democratic Diffusion of AI and the Global AI Impact Commons. The summit connects directly to the IndiaAI Mission, approved in March 2024 with a ₹10,000 crore financial commitment, which provides the structural foundation for India's AI ambitions. It also connects to the concept of Sovereign AI, which promotes training and governing AI models within a nation's own regulatory framework. The series has evolved, shifting its focus from the initial emphasis on "safety" in 2023 to "action" and then to "impact" and diffusion for the Global South in 2026.