India AI Impact Summit 2026 positions AI as national infrastructure

At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, industry leaders said artificial intelligence is strategic infrastructure shaping sovereignty and power. Experts urged sovereign AI development, high-performance computing investment, workforce reskilling and safeguards against systemic digital dependency risks.

New Delhi: Industry leaders and experts on Friday hailed the ‘India AI Impact Summit 2026,’ saying AI is not merely a technology upgrade; it is an infrastructure shift and infrastructure determines power.

Countries have increasingly used trade and technology as strategic leverage.

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According to Savi Soin, SVP and President, Qualcomm India, the country’s “AI future will be defined not just by powerful models, but by how effectively intelligence reaches people, industries, and public systems at scale”.

“Our collaboration with Sarvam reflects Qualcomm Technologies’ long-term commitment to enabling AI for India, bringing together edge computing, hybrid AI architectures, and sovereign design principles so that AI can be accessible, secure, and impactful for every Indian,” he mentioned.

Sunil Gupta, Co-Founder, MD and CEO, Yotta Data Services, said that India’s AI ambition requires sustained, high-performance compute at scale.

“By combining Blackwell Ultra infrastructure with open models like NVIDIA Nemotron and the full NVIDIA AI stack, we are enabling developers to build sovereign, globally competitive AI applications from India,” he mentioned.

The ‘AI Impact Summit’ has drawn participation from policymakers, industry leaders, researchers and startups from across the globe, positioning India as a key voice in shaping the global AI agenda.

According to industry leaders, in a post-AI world, digital dependency could play a similar role if we are not vigilant.

“If our enterprises, defence systems, financial networks, and public infrastructure rely on AI systems we do not fully control, vulnerability becomes systemic. Strategic addiction is subtle — but its consequences are structural,” said Chocko Valliappa, Founder and Managing Director of Vee Technologies.

“India needs a displacement map — sector by sector, region by region — paired with a five-year skilling and transition blueprint. We need AI guardrails, liability frameworks, and shock absorbers for employment markets,” Valliappa added.

Like in the US, India needs to build fast a workforce development board across every district where industry, academia and society sit together to find out how the job displacement will occur and what’s skilling is needed to re-skill our people, he suggested.

There are many Indians who are global leaders in AI — researchers, founders, safety experts, chip designers, systems architects.

“AI is not just innovation. It is a national strategy. And the countries that think about sovereignty, jobs and energy will shape the next century,” said experts.