New Delhi: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has unveiled the logo and flagship initiatives for the India-AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled for February 19–20 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi.

The summit, hosted for the first time by a Global South nation, will be guided by three principles – People, Planet, and Progress – and organised around seven thematic areas referred to as Chakras. These cover human capital, inclusion, safe and trusted AI, resilience, science, democratizing AI resources, and AI for social good.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, while highlighting the progress of the India AI mission, said, “The India AI mission has made very good progress. If we see from the beginning, our main goal was to give better compute facilities to a large number of students, researchers. We had a target of 10000 GPUs, and today we are at 38000GPUs, which is very good progress.” He added, “The AI Data Labs are intentionally located across diverse regions, reflecting our approach to inclusive growth and ensuring that technology is democratized in line with the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of equal access to opportunity. Our target of 570 Data Labs will be spread across the country and open doors for students going forward.”

Among the flagship initiatives announced are the UDAAN Global AI Pitch Fest, YuvaAI Innovation Challenge, AI by HER, Global Innovation Challenge for All, a research symposium, and the AI Expo featuring more than 300 exhibitors from India and 30 countries.

Eight new foundational model projects have also been launched to develop indigenous AI capabilities in multilingual communication, healthcare, science, industry, governance, and agriculture. These include initiatives by IIT Bombay (Bharat Gen), Fractal Analytics, Tech Mahindra Maker’s Lab, Zenteiq, GenLoop, Intellihealth, Shodh AI, and Avatar AI.

Additionally, 30 Data and AI Labs have been launched as the first wave of a 570-lab network. The labs, established in partnership with NIELIT and Intel, will deliver foundational AI and data training courses under the FutureSkills initiative. The IndiaAI Fellowship Program has also been expanded to support 13,500 scholars across undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral levels.

The logo of the summit features the Ashoka Chakra at its core, symbolising ethical governance and constitutional values, with neural network flares radiating outward to represent the transformative impact of AI across languages and sectors.

The summit is expected to bring together heads of state, policymakers, researchers, industry leaders, and innovators to shape a global vision for AI adoption with a focus on inclusivity, sustainability, and equitable access.

BI Bureau