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Shirtless protests, strategic alliances, and another day of staggering financial pledges for AI infrastructure
Where the first day of the India AI Impact Summit saw a bit of controversy over long queues, the last day saw a brief “shirtless protest” by Indian Youth Congress workers opposed to the India-U.S. Interim Trade Agreement.
From that point on, the day went as planned, with strategic alliances, governance, and corporate engagements punctuating each session and roundtable. Here are some of the highlights:
The keynote by Sam Altman called for “urgent” global regulation, and he suggested the world may eventually need an international oversight body similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to coordinate AI safety and respond to rapid technological changes.
Altman emphasized that democratization of AI is the “only fair and safe path forward” to prevent power from being concentrated in a single company or country, and he cited risks related to “superintelligence” potentially emerging by 2028 and the threat of highly capable “bio models” as reasons for society-wide regulation.
While calling for oversight, he noted that regulation should not stifle innovation but rather provide safeguards similar to those used for other powerful technologies.
United States – India Strategic Alliance
In its push to wrest China’s influence from global hardware supply chains, India will join “Pax Silica,” a U.S.-led initiative launched in December 2025 to build resilient supply chains for critical minerals, semiconductors, and AI technologies. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated the “alliance is critical for establishing India’s semiconductor ecosystem,” outlining a shared vision for deep economic and technological cooperation, with member nations including Australia, Greece, Israel, Japan, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
In parallel, the U.S. State Department is working on a “concierge service” to accelerate access to U.S.-made AI chips. This deal has some controversy surrounding it, with scrutiny about whether U.S. diplomats’ traditional neutral diplomatic roles will be converted to roles as “consultative support officers” for U.S. AI companies. There’s also a call for more security or transparency criteria around how nations graduate from “participant” to “signatory” status, which makes them eligible for the concierge service.
RCRTech is following up with the U.S. Dept. of State Pilots on these questions.
The ‘Magna Carta’ of AI
Approximately 75 countries signed the “Delhi Declaration,” a non-binding pledge for global AI governance that aspires to shift the global focus toward inclusive development, equity, and innovation-led growth — all priorities that Prime Minister Modi this week espoused for the Global South.
As part of the collaboration, the European Union Partnership, helmed by Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, launched the “European Legal Gateway Office” in India, which will connect European firms with Indian ICT talent.
On a state level, Andhra Pradesh, a prominent state on the southeastern coast of India, became part of seven MoUs, which will create a “Quantum Valley” in Amaravati. IBM signed a letter of intent to train 100,000 youth in AI, cybersecurity, and quantum computing over the next three to five years.
Additional Corporate Engagements
In addition to the previous days’ alliances, there were new announcements on the last day of the event. CEOs from 16 AI and deep-tech startups discussed AI applications in space and healthcare, and several major corporate and strategic engagements were announced, such as:
General Catalyst: Pledged a $5 billion investment over five years for Indian AI and enterprise startups, a five-fold increase from its previous target.
Tech Mahindra and Nvidia: Launched the first phase of Project Indus to develop a foundational LLM for India’s diverse linguistic landscape. It will be capable of communicating in approximately 40 local Indian languages and dialects.
L&T Vyoma: the company announced an expansion of sovereign AI and digital infrastructure through two key projects – ₹25,000 crore ($3 billion) investment to develop a green, AI-ready data center campus in Dholera, Gujarat; the launch of Lexlegis Legal AI on Vyoma’s Sovereign Cloud.
Reliance Industries and Jio: Reliance Industries Limited and Jio will invest ₹10 lakh crore ($110 billion+) over the next seven years to drive India’s artificial intelligence transformation, with multi-gigawatt, AI-ready data centers in Jamnagar, Gujarat. The first 120 MW will come online in the second half of 2026. About 10 MW will be green energy.
