--- title: India Offers 2047 Tax Holiday to Host the World’s AI Data description: The five-day New Delhi summit is the first global AI gathering hosted in the Global South, drawing 20 national leaders and 250,000 expected visitors. author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-02-16T10:00:12.000Z updated: 2026-03-31T11:24:57.552Z canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/india-offers-2047-tax-holiday-to-host-the-world-s-ai-data image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/india-ai-impact-summit-2026-1.webp categories: Artificial Intelligence content_type: News region: New Delhi publication: Sovereign Magazine --- Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the India AI Impact Summit on 16 February at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, inviting ‘the whole world’s data to reside’ in India. The five-day event follows AI summits hosted by the UK (2023), South Korea (2024) and France (2025), but is the first hosted in the Global South. The government expects 250,000 visitors, 20 national leaders and 45 ministerial delegations across 500 sessions. The centrepiece announcement is a tax holiday through 2047 for foreign companies providing global cloud services from Indian soil. The deadline coincides with the centennial of Indian independence. An estimated $90 billion in AI infrastructure investment has been committed, with data centre hubs planned in Navi Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad. Microsoft alone has pledged $17.5 billion over four years. ## Who is in the room Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Microsoft President Brad Smith, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon and Bill Gates all confirmed attendance. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, former UK Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak and Tony Blair and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are among the heads of state and dignitaries present. Thirteen countries have pavilions, including Russia, Japan, Australia, the UK, Italy, Germany and France. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang cancelled due to what organisers described as unforeseen circumstances. OpenAI has established a dedicated India sales division ahead of the summit, and Google is partnering with the government and edtech firm Physics Wallah on AI education integration. ## France brings the largest delegation French President Emmanuel Macron arrives on 17 February for a three-day visit that includes a bilateral summit with Modi in Mumbai. The two leaders will launch the India-France Year of Innovation 2026. Business France is leading more than 110 French companies to the event, and France occupies the largest international pavilion at 436 square metres with 29 exhibiting firms. Sessions at the French pavilion focus on [digital sovereignty](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/why-europe-is-caught-between-american-and-chinese-tech-giants), responsible AI and secure data infrastructure. Modi attended France’s AI Action Summit in 2025, and reciprocal summit attendance has become a fixed feature of the bilateral relationship. ## India’s case for AI infrastructure India generates nearly 20 per cent of global data, has the second-largest AI workforce worldwide and 700 million internet users. Its digital identity system Aadhaar serves more than one billion citizens, giving it deployment infrastructure that most [developing nations](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/un-vienna-aifod-summit-investors-get-first-look-at-ai-financing-frameworks-in-developing-countries) lack. Under the IndiaAI Mission, the government unveiled 12 indigenous foundation models trained across India’s 22 official languages. The summit is expected to produce a nonbinding declaration on [AI development goals](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/global-summit-in-washington-eyes-new-rules-for-ai-what-businesses-should-watch) rather than enforceable commitments. Whether the $90 billion pipeline converts into operational data centres will be the measure of the event beyond the communique. ## Further Context **Q: Which country is no. 1 in AI?** The United States holds the top position in foundation model development, semiconductor design and enterprise AI maturity. India leads the world in AI talent acquisition with a 33 per cent annual hiring rate according to the Stanford AI Index Report 2025 and was the second-largest contributor to GitHub AI projects in 2024 at 19.9 per cent. China leads in AI patent filings and government-directed compute investment, while the European Union has taken the regulatory lead through the AI Act. **Q: Is India a global leader in AI?** India ranks among the top three countries in the Stanford Global AI Vibrancy Tool and leads globally in AI talent acquisition. Its AI workforce is projected to grow from 650,000 to 1.25 million by 2027, and the IndiaAI Mission has a $1.24 billion budget for compute access, data quality and startup incubation. The country lacks domestic semiconductor capacity and frontier model scale, which the 12 indigenous foundation models unveiled at the AI Impact Summit are designed to begin addressing. **Q: What is India’s contribution to artificial intelligence?** Indian software professionals contributed to 24 per cent of global GitHub AI projects in 2022, the largest national share worldwide. The country produces approximately 1.5 million engineering graduates annually, many specialising in AI and machine learning. Nvidia, Anthropic, OpenAI and Google all recruit AI engineers from India, and the country’s AI market is projected to exceed $17 billion by 2027. IIT Bombay’s Centre for Machine Intelligence and Data Science, established in 2023, is one of several institutional research centres focused on applied AI.