As India prepares to host the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi — a major international forum on artificial intelligence — IT Secretary S. Krishnan has emphasised that the country wants to send a clear, principled message: AI should remain human-centric, inclusive, and democratically accessible. According to Krishnan, India’s goal is to ensure that as AI adoption deepens across sectors, people, not technology alone, are at the centre of decisions about how it is deployed and governed.
In a recent interview, Krishnan said artificial intelligence must be leveraged as a “positive impetus” for the global economy, capable of driving growth not only in developed nations but also in emerging markets like India and the Global South. He stressed that democratic access to AI resources — such as compute, data, and models — is crucial so that benefits reach a broad cross-section of society rather than remaining concentrated among a few powerful players or geographies.
India’s approach to AI, Krishnan said, focuses on inclusion and impact rather than hype. The summit aims to deepen global understanding of how AI will affect humanity and to explore practical strategies for expanding its positive effects as widely as possible. As part of this vision, India’s IndiaAI Mission supports homegrown foundational models of varying sizes and modalities, underscoring the government’s intent to build indigenous AI capabilities alongside global collaboration.
Krishnan also highlighted that India’s policy stance balances innovation with readiness to regulate if necessary, using existing legal frameworks where possible and enacting new laws if and when needed to protect public interest. By foregrounding inclusivity, democratic access, and human-centred governance, India is positioning itself as a voice for equitable AI growth globally — an agenda that the summit’s discussions on ethics, safety, and shared prosperity are expected to advance.
