UN Secretary-General to Attend AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi

Historic Summit to Feature 30+ UN Events on AI

New Delhi:  Senior United Nations leaders, including Secretary-General António Guterres, will participate in the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi. The Summit, the first global AI gathering of its scale to be convened in the Global South, will take place from 16 to 20 February.

The Summit is organized by India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. It will bring together governments, international organizations, industry, academia and civil society to advance responsible artificial intelligence development and deployment in support of sustainable development.

The UN system will convene more than 30 side events during the Summit, addressing areas including agriculture and food security, gender equality, health systems, digital public infrastructure, disaster risk reduction and children’s safety.

“We need shared understandings to build effective guardrails, unlock innovation for the common good, and foster cooperation,” Secretary-General António Guterres said recently ahead of his visit to India.

The Secretary-General will be joined by:

• Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
• Amandeep Singh Gill, Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies
• Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• Gilbert F. Houngbo, Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO)
• Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
• Kamal Kishore, Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction

Additionally, senior representatives from UNDP, UN Women, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNFPA, FAO, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) will also participate.

 Just yesterday, the UN General Assembly appointed 40 members, recommended by the Secretary-General, to the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence. The Panel, the first global scientific body of its kind, will bring together leading experts to assess how AI is transforming societies and economies worldwide. The members were selected from more than 2,600 candidates and will serve in their personal capacity.

The Panel will issue an annual report containing evidence-based scientific assessments that synthesize and analyze existing research on AI’s opportunities, risks and impacts, including in support of the new Global Dialogue on AI Governance. Its members include Indian expert Balaraman Ravindran of IIT Madras.