PM Modi Inaugurates AI Impact Summit 2026: Highlights Jio Intelligence & 300+ Companies Showcase Breakthrough Innovations
Prime Minister Calls AI ‘India’s Biggest Economic Multiplier’; Over 300 Companies, Startups & Researchers Present Cutting-Edge AI Solutions Across Healthcare, Agriculture, Education, Defense & Governance
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated the AI Impact Summit 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, describing artificial intelligence as “the single biggest economic multiplier India has seen in the 21st century.”
In his keynote address, PM Modi spotlighted India’s rapid strides in sovereign and responsible AI development, specifically mentioning Jio Intelligence Reliance Jio’s ambitious large language model family as a major milestone in building home-grown, multilingual foundational AI.
“Jio Intelligence is not just another model. It is proof that when Indian talent, Indian data and Indian values come together, we can create world-class AI that speaks every Indian language and respects every Indian ethos,” the Prime Minister said.
Key Highlights from the Summit Inauguration
- Over 300 companies, startups, research labs and government institutions are participating, showcasing live demos and working prototypes across 12 thematic tracks.
- Major focus areas include:
- Healthcare (AI-powered diagnostics, drug discovery, telemedicine)
- Agriculture (precision farming, crop disease detection, yield prediction)
- Education (personalised learning, regional language tutors)
- Defence & Security (autonomous systems, predictive intelligence)
- Governance (AI for public service delivery, grievance redressal, fraud detection)
- PM Modi launched the National AI Innovation Challenge 2026 with a ₹500 crore prize pool across 10 grand challenges.
Jio Intelligence: Centre of Attention
Reliance Jio’s pavilion drew huge crowds after PM Modi’s special mention. Jio Intelligence (currently in advanced trials) is a family of multimodal, multilingual models trained on Indian languages, culture and public-domain knowledge. Key claims being showcased:
- Supports 22 official Indian languages + 50+ dialects at near-native fluency
- Built on a 540-billion-parameter base model (comparable to Llama 3.1 405B scale)
- Strong reasoning, code generation and long-context understanding
- Designed with built-in safety layers aligned with Indian constitutional values
Jio executives confirmed that limited enterprise pilots will begin in Q2 2026, with broader availability expected later in the year.
Other Notable Innovations on Display
- AI-powered diabetic retinopathy screening tool (Aravind Eye Care + IIT Madras)
- Real-time flood & crop damage assessment drone swarm (IIT Kanpur + ISRO collaboration)
- Bhashini-integrated multilingual voice bot for government helplines (MeitY)
- Defense-grade autonomous surveillance UAV with edge AI (DRDO + Private startup)
- Low-cost AI microscope for rural pathology labs (IIT Delhi + startup)
Government Announcements at the Summit
- ₹2,500 crore AI Compute Credit Scheme for startups & researchers
- National Sovereign AI Cloud first tranche of 10,000 GPUs to be allocated in 2026
- AI Safety & Ethics Framework 2.0 to be notified within 90 days
- Expansion of IndiaAI Mission budget to ₹15,000 crore over next 3 years
Industry & Global Response
Global tech leaders attending the summit welcomed India’s focus on sovereign AI. Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Sundar Pichai (Google) and Jensen Huang (NVIDIA) sent video messages emphasizing long-term collaboration.
Indian IT captains, N. Chandrasekaran (TCS), Salil Parekh (Infosys), CP Gurnani (Tech Mahindra), reiterated that India is moving from “AI consumer” to “AI producer” status.
Conclusion
The AI Impact Summit 2026 has set a bold tone: India is no longer content being a fast adopter of global AI, it is determined to build its own powerful, inclusive and value-aligned AI ecosystem. With Jio Intelligence as a flagship example and over 300 innovations on display, the summit signals that India’s AI journey is entering a decisive new phase.
