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India AI Summit 2026 Unveils MANAV Vision, Trillion‑Rupee Fund, and $50 B Global South Pledge

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  • Figure 1. Top 20 countries by share of global Claude.ai use. India accounts for 5.8% of global Claude.ai consumer use, second only to the United States. Bars show each country’s share of total conversations observed November 13–20, 2025. India highlighted in blue; N = 975, 160 conversations globally.
    Figure 1. Top 20 countries by share of global Claude.ai use. India accounts for 5.8% of global Claude.ai consumer use, second only to the United States. Bars show each country’s share of total conversations observed November 13–20, 2025. India highlighted in blue; N = 975, 160 conversations globally.
    Image: Anthropic
    Figure 1. Top 20 countries by share of global Claude.ai use. India accounts for 5.8% of global Claude.ai consumer use, second only to the United States. Bars show each country’s share of total conversations observed November 13–20, 2025. India highlighted in blue; N = 975, 160 conversations globally. (Anthropic) Source Full size
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    Image: BBC
    Reuters Source Full size
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    Getty Images Source Full size
  • Figure 2. Share of India's Claude.ai use by state. Map shows each state’s share of India’s total Claude.ai use. Top states: Maharashtra (15.5%), Tamil Nadu (13.2%), Karnataka (12.7%), Delhi (10.5%). Gray regions indicate insufficient data. November 2025 data. Shapefile for the map from Natural Earth.
    Figure 2. Share of India's Claude.ai use by state. Map shows each state’s share of India’s total Claude.ai use. Top states: Maharashtra (15.5%), Tamil Nadu (13.2%), Karnataka (12.7%), Delhi (10.5%). Gray regions indicate insufficient data. November 2025 data. Shapefile for the map from Natural Earth.
    Image: Anthropic
    Figure 2. Share of India's Claude.ai use by state. Map shows each state’s share of India’s total Claude.ai use. Top states: Maharashtra (15.5%), Tamil Nadu (13.2%), Karnataka (12.7%), Delhi (10.5%). Gray regions indicate insufficient data. November 2025 data. Shapefile for the map from Natural Earth. (Anthropic) Source Full size

Summit launches human‑centric AI framework and global governance statement Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the MANAV Vision, defining moral, accountable, sovereign, accessible, and valid AI principles, while France’s Emmanuel Macron and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva joined him in a joint AI risk statement; a Stanford study placed India third worldwide in AI competitiveness, overtaking South Korea and Japan[1][3].

Corporate pledges total over $200 billion, including a trillion‑rupee fund Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani announced a ₹10 lakh crore (≈ $120 billion) AI investment over seven years, Google committed $15 billion to a full‑stack AI hub in Visakhapatnam with gigawatt‑scale compute and four new subsea cables, Nvidia partnered with L&T to build India’s largest gigawatt‑scale AI factory, and Microsoft pledged $50 billion for AI infrastructure in the Global South by 2030, aligning with the summit’s target of $200 billion AI‑related investment through 2028[1][2][3][6].

Policy initiatives aim to translate AI into jobs and social protection The government launched an AI Mission and a high‑powered “Education to Employment and Enterprise” committee to embed AI education, while the e‑Shram platform now covers 315 million informal workers; Microsoft’s $17.5 billion AI‑diffusion effort will integrate AI into e‑Shram and the National Career Service, supporting projections of more than three million new tech jobs by 2030 and a record 250,946 student pledges for responsible AI use[4][5].

Stakeholders flag inequities, language gaps, and a robotics controversy Analysts note that only 11.5 % of low‑income country jobs face generative‑AI exposure, language support covers just half of India’s 22 official languages, and data‑labelers earn roughly ₹480,000 annually; a Chinese Unitree Go2 robot dog displayed by Galgotias University sparked backlash and the pavilion’s removal, underscoring tensions over foreign tech presence[4][8][5].

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Timeline

Dec 9, 2025 – Microsoft announces a $17.5 billion investment in India over FY 2026‑2029, unveiled after a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and framed around scale, skills and sovereignty, building on an earlier $3 billion commitment. [14]

Dec 10, 2025 – Satya Nadella says he is “thrilled” about new Indian data‑centre capacity, cites sites in Pune, Chennai and Mumbai and a Hyderabad hyperscale region slated for mid‑2026, and confirms a $17.5 billion AI‑focused investment by 2030 discussed with Modi. [13]

Dec 10, 2025 – Amazon and Microsoft together pledge $52.5 billion for AI in India, with Amazon committing $35 billion by 2030 to drive digitisation and export growth, and Microsoft earmarking $17.5 billion for a Hyderabad hyperscale cloud region and sovereign public cloud; Modi tweets “When it comes to AI, the world is optimistic about India.” [2]

Dec 10, 2025 – Amazon reiterates its $35 billion India investment through 2030, aiming to quadruple exports to $80 billion and create about one million jobs, expanding on its prior $40 billion spend since 2010. [12]

Dec 30, 2025 – The Principal Scientific Advisor’s white paper calls for open access to AI infrastructure, urging that compute, datasets and tools be shared beyond large firms and urban hubs and recommending integration of Aadhaar and UPI into AI systems. [10]

Late 2025 – Bengaluru climbs to fifth globally among AI ecosystems and 14th in overall start‑up rankings; a ₹600 crore deep‑tech fund and a ₹1,000 crore LEAP programme signal strong government backing for AI, quantum and robotics ventures. [11]

Feb 16, 2026 – A study shows India accounts for 5.8 % of global Claude.ai conversations, with activity concentrated in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Delhi, delivering 15× productivity gains for software tasks but ranking 101st per‑capita worldwide. [15]

Feb 17, 2026 – The AI Impact Summit opens in Delhi, gathering CEOs, politicians, scientists and activists; Bill Gates confirms his keynote, underscoring the summit’s prominence in the Global South. [1]

Feb 18, 2026 – Microsoft pledges $50 billion to narrow the AI gap in developing economies by 2030, with Brad Smith and Natasha Crampton warning that AI adoption remains “profoundly uneven” and urging cross‑border partnerships. [3]

Feb 18, 2026 – India pushes a human‑centred AI agenda on World Day of Social Justice, noting AI could create over three million jobs by 2030 and that Microsoft’s $17.5 billion commitment will embed AI in the e‑Shram social‑protection platform. [6]

Feb 18, 2026 – Day 3 sees Galgotias University withdraw after a controversy over a Chinese Unitree Go2 robot dog; Sundar Pichai asserts India’s ecosystem can spawn world‑leading firms and announces three subsea cables and four fiber routes as part of a $15 billion investment. [7]

Feb 18, 2026 – Nvidia partners with L&T to build India’s largest gigawatt‑scale AI factory, and Yotta secures a $2 billion deal for 20,000 top‑end AI processors, expanding domestic AI hardware capacity. [7]

Feb 18, 2026 – Microsoft reiterates its $50 billion Global South pledge, emphasizing infrastructure, skilling and real‑world problem solving, and notes its 2025 data‑centre spend of $80 billion largely went to the United States. [9]

Feb 19, 2026 – Prime Minister Modi unveils the MANAV Vision, a human‑centric AI governance framework (Moral, Accountable, National sovereignty, Accessible, Valid) positioned as a global ethical guide. [4]

Feb 19, 2026 – Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani pledges a ₹10 lakh crore (₹1 trillion) AI fund over seven years, describing AI as a path to “superabundance” and a fork between scarcity and affordability. [4]

Feb 19, 2026 – OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declares India the world’s leading AI adopter and predicts it will become one of the largest AI markets, praising the “amazing” tech ecosystem. [4]

Feb 19, 2026 – UN Secretary‑General Antonio Guterres warns that billionaire‑driven AI control could deepen inequality and urges tech leaders to back a $3 billion global fund to keep AI open. [4]

Feb 19, 2026 – Tata Group announces AI‑optimized automotive chips leveraging Indian data, with the first batch slated for release later in 2026. [4]

Feb 19, 2026 – Google launches a full‑stack AI hub in Visakhapatnam, featuring gigawatt‑scale compute and an international subsea cable gateway, as part of a $15 billion India plan. [5]

Feb 19, 2026 – Sundar Pichai warns of a digital‑AI divide, citing investments in compute and connectivity across India, Thailand and Malaysia, and cites DeepMind’s AlphaFold as a showcase of AI’s scientific impact. [5]

Feb 19, 2026 – US tech giants unveil major AI infrastructure deals: Google’s subsea cables to Singapore, South Africa and Australia; Nvidia’s processor partnership with three Indian cloud firms and L&T; and India projects over $200 billion of AI‑related investment through 2028, with $90 billion already pledged. [8]

Feb 20, 2026 – The AI Impact Summit coincides with the World Day of Social Justice, emphasizing responsible AI education as 250,946 students pledge responsible AI use, setting a Guinness World Record. [7]

Mid‑2026 (expected) – Microsoft’s Hyderabad hyperscale cloud region goes live, delivering sovereign public‑cloud services for Indian enterprises. [2][14]

By 2028 (target) – India aims to attract more than $200 billion in AI‑related investments, building on the $90 billion already pledged by foreign and domestic firms. [8]

By 2030 (target) – Microsoft’s $50 billion Global South AI pledge, Amazon’s $35 billion India investment, and Google’s $15 billion AI hub collectively aim to position India as a leading AI hub for the Global South, supporting job creation, sovereign cloud and AI‑driven economic transformation. [2][3][5][4]

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