India aims to build consensus to harness AI for public good, contain harms: Vaishnaw

India looks to drive consensus among global leaders on the proper and ethical use of AI, so that the technology can be harnessed for the benefit of humanity while containing harms arising out of its improper use, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday (February 17, 2026).

The Minister said India expects to see investments to the tune of $200 billion in the next two years across five layers of the Artificial Intelligence stack.

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The commitment of VCs in deep-tech startups is visible, he said, exuding confidence that 50 deep-techs will emerge from India in the coming years.

In the next one week, the government will be placing an order for 20,000 GPUs with deployments taking place in the next six months, he said, adding that a bigger IndiaAI Mission is also in the works.

“We’ll have the summit where we will try to create a consensus among the global leaders about good, proper and right use of AI so Artificial Intelligence can be used for the benefit of humanity and while we can contain the harms which may come from improper use,” Mr. Vaishnaw said.

India has created a structure similar to DPI as part of its India AI mission.

“We are expecting another 20,000 GPUs over and above the 38,000 GPUs that we already have in the common compute layer. In another one week, we will be placing orders for another 20,000 GPUs, and they will be deployed within the next six months,” the minister said at a briefing on India AI Impact Summit.

The government is constantly endeavouring to provide high-quality resources to startups, researchers and students, he added.

“…our government is focused on keeping technology accessible to the entire large section of people who would like to use it,” Mr. Vaishnaw said.