Sundar Pichai delivered a keynote at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi on February 17-18, describing AI as the "biggest platform shift of our lifetimes" with power to solve healthcare and climate challenges, but warned against letting the digital divide become an "AI divide." He urged bold pursuit, responsible development through infrastructure and policies, and global collaboration to ensure equitable access, highlighting India's rapid tech adoption as a leapfrogging opportunity.

Detailed Warning on AI Divide
Pichai stressed that AI benefits aren't automatic; without proactive government roles in policies, guardrails, and access, uneven distribution could widen inequalities. He noted workforce shifts—AI automating roles while creating new ones like YouTube creators—and called for training, citing Google's programs for 100 million in digital skills and a new AI Professional Certificate. Trust tools like SynthID for content verification were mentioned to build adoption.

India's Role and Optimism
Reflecting personally, Pichai recalled train rides past Visakhapatnam (Vizag), now Google's full-stack AI hub under a $15 billion investment, housing gigawatt-scale compute and subsea cable gateways for jobs and AI benefits. He praised India's pace of change, positioning it to improve billions of lives via AI, with examples like government AI monsoon forecasts for farmers enabled by Google's NeuralGCM model.

Google Announcements
Alphabet committed to four new US-India subsea fiber-optic systems as part of the America-India Connect initiative, enhancing global connectivity alongside hubs in Thailand and Malaysia. Practical impacts include AI aiding 38 million Indian farmers with weather predictions to boost incomes, partnerships in Ghana for African languages, and El Salvador for affordable diagnostics. Scientific advances like AlphaFold's Nobel-winning protein predictions were highlighted, now used by 3 million researchers worldwide.

Broader Vision
Pichai advocated governments as innovators—e.g., Uganda's AI electrification mapping or Memphis pothole detection—and companies innovating across sectors. He concluded with a call to "pursue AI boldly & responsibly" together, emphasizing hyperprogress for emerging economies.