The India AI Impact Summit was one the most significant moments in tech for the country. And, when more than 20 heads of state, the CEOs of the world’s leading AI companies and delegates from over 80 countries gather in New Delhi to shape the future of artificial intelligence, you expect precision. You expect orchestration. You expect intelligence. Not just artificial, but human. What unfolded over the 5 days, however, often felt like a case of mismanagement, bad decisions and an attempt to make the top few happy.
The irony was hard to miss. A summit meant to democratise AI was, in practice, engineered around VIP movement. Roads were frequently shut with little notice to facilitate ministerial convoys leaving delegates, founders, engineers, investors, journalists stranded in traffic snarls that stretched for miles.
By late evening, videos began circulating of attendees walking along darkened roads because transport systems had collapsed under the strain of repeated closures. Among them were startup founders who had flown in to pitch the future of Indian AI, now dragging suitcases past barricades and bewildered security personnel.
The dysfunction didn’t end outside the venue.
Inside, the summit’s main halls were overcrowded and chaotic. Long queues snaked through corridors. Entry policies shifted without explanation. Rooms overflowed beyond capacity. Communication infrastructure faltered at peak hours, rendering coordination nearly impossible.
Delegates complained of inconsistent badge scanning, last-minute session changes and security personnel unsure of updated protocols.
Then, there was more.
Dhananjay Yadav, founder of India-based AI wearables startup NeoSapien, had display technology stolen from his booth amid the confusion. In a summit centered on frontier innovation, basic asset security failed.
Elsewhere in the exhibition hall, a shirtless protest disrupted proceedings. Now this is something straight out of a Seth Rogen movie and I really never thought I will witness it.
In another surreal episode, staff from Galgotias University were reportedly presenting a commercially available Chinese-made robot dog as their own creation. The situation escalated into a bunch of memes and eventually the organisers asked them to vacate the booth.
Then came the speaker setbacks.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia and arguably the most consequential figure in the current AI boom, canceled days before his scheduled address. Nvidia’s South Asia managing director, Vishal Dhupar, later cited illness as the reason. Senior executive Jay Puri led the delegation in Huang’s place.
More dramatically, Bill Gates withdrew just hours before his keynote. The Gates Foundation confirmed the cancellation, leaving attendees scrambling. To be fair, last-minute cancellations are not unheard of at global summits. But combined with logistical disarray, they compounded a perception problem: that the event’s ambition had outpaced its operational preparedness.
For a gathering positioned as a geopolitical inflection point for AI, much of the technology on display felt…familiar.
Robotics dominated conversations. Humanoid prototypes, quadruped robot dogs, industrial automation demos — many iterations of concepts we have seen at CES booths and corporate expos for years. The argument given was that not everyone has access to them. But, then where was the actual innovation?
To its credit, the summit was not without substance.
A diplomatic declaration secured commitments from 88 countries and international organisations to pursue inclusive AI development. Voluntary governance commitments for frontier AI companies were announced. Over $200 billion in investment pledges were unveiled.
On paper, that is no small feat.
But global credibility is built not just on declarations, but on delivery. When founders are walking highways at midnight and exhibitors are guarding booths against theft, the optics undercut the ambition.
Artificial intelligence may be about machine learning, large language models and autonomous systems. Yet the summit proved that without basic human coordination, traffic planning, crowd management, communication clarity and security oversight even the most advanced technological vision can unravel.
The India AI Summit set out to shape the future of intelligence.
Instead, at critical moments, it exposed the absence of the most essential kind.