Tech giants have pledged hundreds of billions of dollars to develop AI in India on the back of a major summit in the country that will bring together world leaders and AI executives.
Record amounts are being poured into AI as governments and businesses around the world race to deploy AI technology. Hyperscalers — including: Amazon, microsoft, meta and alphabet — Announced that capital investment in AI could reach $700 billion this year.
Last week, the Indian technology group dependence Announcing plans to invest $110 billion in data centers and other infrastructure, compatriot Adani outlined plans to build a $100 billion AI data center over the next 10 years, according to reports.
There were also big announcements from US technology companies.
Microsoft said at India’s AI Impact Summit that it is on pace to invest $50 billion in AI in the Global South by the end of 2020. OpenAI and chip manufacturers AMD Both companies announced a partnership with the Tata Group and a US asset manager to build AI capabilities. black stone It also announced that it participated in the $600 million equity raise for India’s AI infrastructure Neysa.
The pledge was announced during a controversial summit. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates withdrew from the event amid public backlash over his past relationship with late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. An Indian university also came under fire after claiming to have invented a commercially available Chinese robot dog.
AI potential in India
The AI Summit was held as India aims to become one of the world’s technology powerhouses. The country has approved an $18 billion chip project aimed at strengthening local supply chains.
Meanwhile, the United States and India are moving toward a trade agreement that would lower tariffs and strengthen economic cooperation between the two countries. This event further deepened technical connections.
Representatives from both governments signed the Pax Silica Agreement, a U.S.-led initiative launched by the Trump administration to secure global supply chains for silicon-based technologies.
It was clear from the roster of attendees that technology groups see potential in the market. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic boss Dario Amodei, and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis were all implicated in the claim.
US chip darling Nvidia announced an expansion of its partnership with an Indian venture capital firm in a bid to deepen exposure to promising technology companies being developed within its ecosystem.
While India’s public markets were booming towards the end of 2025, private capital remains scarce, Aniru Suri, founding partner of the India Internet Fund, told CNBC.
“What we are probably not seeing much at the moment is venture capital and private equity money coming in to invest in Indian entrepreneurs in the AI space,” he said.
India is seen as lagging behind countries like the United States and China on the AI development front, but Microsoft President Brad Smith told CNBC that that could change in niche areas.
“If you look at the engineering talent, you will quickly conclude that India can also be a place where models are developed,” he says. There will be “a variety of deep-seeking moments” in the future, some of which will happen in India along with China and other countries, Smith added.
But some say India is still playing catch-up.
“India is making some splashy attempts to jump-start its belated AI push, but it’s mostly proposing headline-grabbing strategies that don’t actually address many of the fundamental challenges of doing business in India,” Udis Sikand, senior emerging markets analyst at financial research firm Gabekal, told CNBC.
