Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday to a red‑carpet reception for the AI Impact Summit 2026. Traveling with more than a dozen ministers and a sizable business delegation that included top Brazilian CEOs, Lula said he hopes the trip will help deepen trade links with India.
“India and Brazil share a close and multifaceted relationship,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal noted. India assumed the BRICS presidency from Brazil this year, and Lula’s visit follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s July 2025 trip to Brasilia—the first by an Indian premier in more than half a century. Lula is scheduled to attend summit sessions on Thursday and hold bilateral talks with Modi over the weekend.
Brazil sees India as an under‑exploited market for exports such as cotton, seeds, teak, soybean oil and minerals, including rare earths important for technology projects—a field where China currently dominates.
Other world leaders at the summit
French President Emmanuel Macron was a prominent presence on Tuesday, joining Modi to inaugurate a helicopter assembly line built under the “Make in India” push. The plant, a partnership between Tata Group and Airbus in Vemagal, Karnataka, is expected to begin operations by April. “Our collaboration with India is a win‑win situation,” said Jocelyn Gaudin, head of Airbus’s engineering and innovation centre in Bengaluru.
The summit comes as Europe and India pursue closer economic ties after an EU‑India free trade agreement signed in January, which Modi called the “mother of all trade deals.” Under the deal India agreed to remove aircraft tariffs—likely benefiting Airbus—and to cut levies on much industrial machinery. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is also due at the summit; on Wednesday he toured Delhi’s Lodhi area with India’s culture and tourism minister to see a street art initiative.
About 20 heads of state and government are expected to attend the five‑day event, which runs through Friday.
US tech giants announce Indian expansions
Several US technology firms used the summit platform to unveil India plans. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced new subsea cable projects that will link India with Singapore, South Africa and Australia, saying, “India’s going to have an extraordinary trajectory with AI and we want to be a partner.” The cables form part of Google’s $15 billion proposal to build its largest AI data‑centre hub outside the US in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
Nvidia said it will team up with three Indian cloud providers to supply advanced processors for training and operating AI systems. Mumbai‑based infrastructure firm L&T announced a collaboration with Nvidia to build what it called “India’s largest gigawatt‑scale AI factory.” IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said India expects more than $200 billion in investments over the next two years, with roughly $90 billion already committed.
Robot dog controversy
The summit’s opening was marred by a small scandal after Galgotias University was expelled from the event when a staff member presented a Chinese‑made robotic dog as the university’s own invention. Online users identified the device as the Unitree Go2, produced by Unitree Robotics and widely used in research and education. Galgotias later clarified it had not built the robot, adding that “what we are building are minds that will soon design, engineer, and manufacture such technologies.”
Edited by Dmytro Hubenko