India AI Impact Summit 2026: Pax Silica Declaration Marks Historic US-India Tech Alliance

India AI Impact Summit 2026: Pax Silica Declaration Marks Historic US-India Tech Alliance

Delhi, February 19, 2026 — The four-day India AI Impact Summit, hosted at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, concluded with unprecedented global consensus on the future of artificial intelligence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the summit on February 19, declaring, "India is not just adopting AI — we are shaping its ethical architecture for the Global South." The event, attended by CEOs from OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, and Cloudflare, culminated in the signing of the Pax Silica Declaration — a bilateral framework between India and the United States to jointly develop secure, transparent, and accessible AI systems.

According to Times of India, the Pax Silica Declaration commits both nations to co-invest $5 billion over five years in AI infrastructure, including open-source model development, quantum-AI hybrid research, and secure cloud-edge computing networks. The agreement also establishes a joint AI ethics review board with representation from civil society, academia, and industry, aiming to set global benchmarks for algorithmic accountability.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced during the summit that the cost of training large AI models is expected to fall by 70% within the next 18 months due to breakthroughs in sparse architecture and energy-efficient silicon. "We’re moving from an era of compute hoarding to one of democratized access," Altman stated. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, echoed this sentiment, revealing Google’s plan to deploy 100,000 AI-enabled rural health kiosks across India by 2028, powered by lightweight models optimized for low-bandwidth environments.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the "India Quantum-AI Chip Initiative," a collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science and the Department of Science and Technology to design custom AI accelerators leveraging quantum-inspired computing principles. "The future of AI isn’t just about more transistors — it’s about rethinking computation itself," Huang said. Experts note this initiative could position India as a global hub for next-generation AI hardware, challenging current U.S.-China dominance in semiconductor design.

Cloudflare’s CEO, Matthew Prince, announced a new AI-driven cybersecurity protocol, "ShieldAI," designed to detect deepfakes and synthetic media at the network edge — a critical tool for safeguarding democratic processes in emerging economies. "With misinformation campaigns escalating globally, we need infrastructure that protects truth as much as it processes data," Prince remarked.

The summit also featured a panel on AI and climate resilience, where representatives from the World Economic Forum highlighted that six of the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2025 — including AI-powered carbon capture modeling and predictive agricultural systems — are already being piloted in Indian states. According to TechCrunch, these innovations are projected to reduce agricultural waste by 30% and lower energy consumption in urban centers by 22% by 2030.

While the summit celebrated technological progress, concerns were raised by civil society groups about data sovereignty and labor displacement. Dr. Aisha Khan of the Digital Rights Foundation urged attendees to prioritize "AI for the many, not the few," calling for mandatory impact assessments before public-sector AI deployment.

As the summit closed, PM Modi announced the launch of "AI for Bharat," a national program to train 10 million Indians in AI literacy by 2028, with certification recognized globally. The event has cemented India’s role not merely as a consumer of AI, but as a co-architect of its global future — blending innovation with inclusivity in a way few nations have attempted.