India’s moment: Big names, packed halls & some usual chaos

NEW DELHI WOKE up to billboards, barricades and buzz on Monday as the AI Impact Summit 2026 opened at Bharat Mandapam — billed as the world’s largest artificial intelligence gathering — drawing packed halls, long queues and an unmistakable signal: India wants to sit at the head table of the global AI order.

- TEAM FE

By 9.30 am, lines had already begun snaking outside session halls. Delegates — policymakers, founders, engineers, investors and students — jostled to enter auditoriums that filled up quickly, forcing organisers to shut doors once capacity was reached. “You have to be there well in advance,’ one participant said. “This isn’t a summit where you can float from session to session.”

Inside, the scale was hard to miss. Over five days, the summit is slated to host more than 3,000 speakers across 500-plus sessions, alongside a sprawling expo featuring over 300 exhibitions and 13 country pavilions.

Tech majors including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Open AI and Nvidia showcased their latest AI deployments — from enterprise copilots to sovereign compute stacks. Alongside serious policy discussions, the event features cutting-edge, dancing humanoid robots, highlighting advancements in robotics, AI-driven entertainment, and “Make in India” innovations.