New Delhi , February 20 : Union Information Technology (IT) Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday said India received over USD 270 billion in investment pledges at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'MANAV' vision for Artificial Intelligence secured strong global endorsement and positioned the country as a leading voice in human-centric AI governance.
Addressing a press conference at the conclusion of the five-day India AI Impact Summit 2026 here, he described the summit as a "major success" across multiple fronts.
"We also have a lot of investment pledges. I think the number is growing each day, it's already crossed USD 250 billion for the infra-related investments and about USD 20 billion for the VC deep tech investments that have been committed by investors. This is a very important sign for us. The numbers are important, but what is important is that the world has confidence in India's role in the new AI age," Vaishnaw said.
Highlighting the international reception to India's AI strategy, Vaishnaw said, "We also found very strong endorsement of our policy of working on all five layers and our focus on having a sovereign bouquet of models, the models which were released. In every bilateral that I had with the industry leaders, they were really surprised at the quality of output with such few resources...with such frugal resources, our engineers and researchers have produced such good models, which is what gives us huge, huge, useful."
He said PM Modi's "MANAV AI" vision was "very well accepted globally."
The Prime Minister had earlier unveiled the comprehensive "MANAV Vision" at the summit, stating, "Today at the New Delhi AI Impact Summit, I present the MANAV Vision for AI. MANAV means human."
Explaining the framework, the Prime Minister said, "'M' stands for moral and ethical systems - AI should be based on ethical guidance. 'A' stands for accountable governance, meaning transparent rules and robust oversight. 'N' stands for national sovereignty - data belongs to its rightful owner. 'A' stands for accessible and inclusive - AI should be a multiplier, not a monopoly. 'V' stands for valid and legitimate - AI should be lawful and verifiable."
Furthermore, Vaishnaw said over 5 lakh visitors attended the exhibition, and more than 2.5 lakh students participated, setting a Guinness World Record.
"We had practically every major AI player in the world participating in large numbers," he said, adding that the quality of discussions across the ministerial dialogue, Leaders' Plenary and inauguration sessions was "phenomenal."
Stating that the previous action summit had about 60 signatories in the final declaration, he said, "By the time we close the summit tomorrow, we believe that it will cross 80. All the major countries have already signed."
On the semiconductor front, Vaishnaw said the world views India as a trusted partner in the supply chain. "From all the discussions that we had, it very clearly emerged that the world looks at India as a trusted partner for the semiconductor supply chain, which means the way the semiconductor industry will grow in our country in the coming years, that looks like a very important as it will emerge as a major sector," he said.
India formally joined the Pax Silica coalition on Friday, aimed at securing the "silicon stack" from critical minerals to advanced AI systems. Vaishnaw said innovation was driving cost efficiencies globally. "People are looking at reducing power cost by 50 per cent. The same thing will happen in chip cost. So much innovation is happening," he said.
He further added, "India will be a big beneficiary of that innovation, because we are starting our design and semiconductor journey at a point where we can use all the benefits that we know about AI and optimise our design of chips according to the new age."
He also announced that commercial production will begin on February 28 at Micron's largest facility and that the foundation stone for a new semiconductor plant in Uttar Pradesh would be laid soon.
On regulation, the Minister said India's "techno-legal" approach to AI and Synthetic Generation of Information (SGI) was receiving global acclaim.
Referring to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 Amendment Rules 2026, he said, "Many countries are already moving to bring in regulations on SGI. Many have congratulated India on our approach. In fact, three countries have explicitly said they would like to make their framework like India's. Our template is 'bahut accha' (very good)."
"There should be transparency on whether it is real content or AI-generated. Watermarking is essential so that the user knows the nature of the information they are consuming," he added, stressing that illegality online remains illegality under the Constitution.
Vaishnaw said India will soon begin work on AI Mission 2.0 and reiterated that the government remains open to feedback as it works toward the goal of Viksit Bharat by 2047.
Meanwhile, slamming the Congress over the 'shirtless' protest organised by its youth wing at Bharat Mandapam during the Summit, Vaishnaw asserted that the youth does not believe in the negative politics peddled by the opposition party.
He said Congress doesn't even comprehend the needs of the country's youth.
"The youth very clearly said that this is their exhibition. It is the exhibition. This is the summit for the youth. The youth who want to make the best use of it. They don't believe in the negative politics that Congress was trying to play. We had some bad choices here. We took immediate action against anybody who tried to demean the good work done by our startups," Vaishnaw said.
He added, "When so many good things are happening, how can one small thing be highlighted so much. It's a personal learning for me. It was also a learning for me that people who are in politics, some of the people are opposition, they don't even understand what the youth today wants, and they try to create things which are sad in a way and funny in another way."
His remarks come after a group of Indian Youth Congress members staged a protest at the Bharat Mandapam during the AI Summit by removing and displaying their shirts printed with slogans which read 'Compromised Prime Minister'.
