India, Feb. 15 -- India's AI moment has arrived - and it will now be judged not by ambition, but by architecture. As the country prepares to host the India AI Impact Summit 2026, the focus shifts from startup buzz and research depth to compute muscle, data sovereignty, and deployment at population scale. With the Global South asserting its place in shaping AI governance, India's execution model is under a global spotlight.

At the centre of this inflection point is Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and CEO of the IndiaAI Mission. A 1995-batch IAS officer who has steered key national digital platforms including NeGD, MyGov and Karmayogi Bharat, he now anchors India's AI strategy acros...