The second day of the India-AI Impact Summit on Tuesday saw government officials, industry leaders, defence experts, and global organisations outline how
artificial intelligence (AI) is moving from experimentation to deployment across sectors. Discussions ranged from India’s $200 billion AI investment target and indigenous defence systems to agriculture advisory tools and village governance platforms. Speakers also flagged adoption gaps, workforce transition, and the need for trusted and locally built AI systems.
India targeting $200 billion in AI investments across technology stack
Union Electronics and IT Minister
Ashwini Vaishnaw said
India is aiming to attract up to $200 billion in AI investments across compute, data and application layers over the next two years, according to ANI. He said global technology firms including Microsoft, Google and Amazon have already announced major investments in AI infrastructure, reflecting India’s growing role as a global technology and data centre hub.
Vaishnaw said investments are coming across all parts of the AI ecosystem, from infrastructure to energy. “We are also seeing huge investment interests in the infra layer and the energy layer.”
Amitabh Kant urges Global South countries to build own AI models
“The challenge is whether we can ensure that AI reaches the population which is below the poverty line, whether it can be used to transform the lives of citizens in the Global South and whether it can be used to improve learning, health outcomes, and nutritional standards,” he added.
Why did experts say AI adoption, not innovation, is India’s biggest gap?
“The biggest gap is adoption, although I don’t know if I would frame it solely as a lack of capacity. I think for philanthropy, one of the goals is always to make adoption easier. There are two pathways for that. One pathway is building shared infrastructure so that markets can work better to serve vulnerable people. It involves streamlining market entry to make it easier for low-cost suppliers to enter and compete,” said Janet Zhou, director at the Gates Foundation.
How did the Army use AI in Arunachal Pradesh operations?
“We could see through some AI systems that something was building up. Finally, we were able to predict the timing of their move,” he said.
DRDO DG emphasises indigenous AI for defence systems
DRDO Director General Chandrika Kaushik said
India must develop domestic AI systems to reduce dependence on foreign technologies. She said indigenous AI capabilities are critical for national security and defence preparedness.
“”AI has started going to the edge. It is going to the battlefield itself. So, over time, we have to quickly gear up towards incorporating the AI solutions into the defence domain,” she noted.
Sridhar Vembu calls for early involvement of edu institutions
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu said
educational institutions must play a central role in AI development, stressing early integration of universities into research and workforce training. He said building domestic capability requires aligning academic research with industry needs to ensure a steady pipeline of engineers and AI specialists.
Vembu said India currently has strong momentum in adopting artificial intelligence, highlighting its growing practical impact. “Today AI can write code really well,” he said, adding that such capabilities have the potential to drive major productivity gains across sectors. He emphasised that Indian IT firms maintain close working relationships with global clients, giving them an advantage in rapidly embedding AI into existing workflows.
What is Gnani.ai’s newly launched 5-billion-parameter voice AI model?
Meanwhile, Voice AI startup Gnani.ai
unveiled a 5-billion-parameter voice-to-voice model designed to process spoken input and generate spoken output directly. The company said the model supports multilingual use cases and conversational applications, particularly relevant for India’s diverse language environment.
Gnani.ai said the model is designed for applications where real-time voice interaction is essential, rather than systems built primarily around text. The company said that in government deployments, this could support conversational AI across helplines, grievance redressal platforms and emergency response networks, where handling multilingual, natural speech inputs is critical.
How is AI being used in healthcare, from telemedicine to diagnostics?
Speaking at the session, Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava said India’s AI journey in healthcare began with the shift from simple digitisation of records to the creation of a nationwide interoperable digital health framework. She explained that while digital platforms collect and share data, artificial intelligence enables systems to analyse that information and generate actionable insights.
What is ‘Sabhasaar’ and how is it improving village governance?
The Panchayati Raj Ministry showcased ‘Sabhasaar’,
an AI platform that converts Gram Sabha meeting recordings into written records in local languages. “Gram Sabha is the most important platform in the Panchayati Raj system where the problems of the village are discussed, solutions are agreed upon, and financial matters such as budget allocations and schemes are reviewed,” said Sushil Kumar Lohani, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj. He further reflected on how AI-powered solutions are improving the functioning of Gram Sabhas, the foundational decision-making bodies in villages.
Can AI reduce port cargo handling costs in India?
“There is an approximate saving by use of AI of ₹20,000 crore in our handling.. And every year we can save Rs 15,000 crore as far as the logistic cost is concerned,” he said.
AI can help farmers access timely agricultural information
“As farmers, they always look for advice, which is timely. And many people say that the old extension network has broken down. …Across many agriculture departments and state governments, the far greater focus is on how inputs get channelised. There is less attention to the kind of advice that farmers really want,” Krishnan pointed out.
UN calls for more female participation in AI development
“When women are missing from design tables, the test labs, the term sheets — bias doesn’t emerge by accident. It becomes the default,” said Christine Arab, UN Women Regional Director for Asia Pacific.
She added that gender diversity in AI teams can help improve fairness and reduce bias in AI systems.
Media leaders say AI will not replace journalism
Speaking at a panel session titled ‘AI and Media: Opportunity, Responsibility, and the Road Ahead’, media leaders said AI will support journalism but not replace editorial judgment. They discussed
how AI is affecting newsrooms, revenue models and public discourse, adding that trust, accountability, and verification remain core responsibilities of journalists.
“India is a vibrant country and in such an environment, editorial discretion, verification and institutional memory is not optional. It is foundational, and the press is not just something which produces information. It curates trust, it provides context and it accepts the moral and the legal responsibility for what it publishes. And that layer of accountability is the differentiator. And when AI begins to commoditise information, trust will become scarce, and that scarcity will create value,” noted Mohit Jain, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director of Bennett Coleman Group.
Mastercard demonstrates breakthrough in AI-driven commerce
“India is entering a defining phase in its AI journey—one where intelligent, in-flow commerce becomes the norm. AI has long solved discovery well, but payments pulled users out of the experience, creating friction and drop-offs. By completing a fully authenticated agentic commerce transaction on our network within a Large Language Model, we have shown what the future looks like: seamless, secure, end-to-end commerce powered by trusted AI,” said Gautam Aggarwal, President, India & South Asia, Mastercard.
