When a country promises the world a technological revolution, the least it can do is not buy it on AliExpress.
Covering Bharat Mandapam earlier this week, observers expected to see the future of Indian innovation. The “India AI Impact Summit 2026” was billed as New Delhi’s answer to Silicon Valley—a dazzling showcase of the “Viksit Bharat” narrative where indigenous genius would take center stage. Instead, what the world got was a farce so humiliating it makes one want to curl up in a server room and cry. The summit, intended to be a coronation of India as a Global South AI leader, dissolved into a viral comedy sketch featuring a stolen Chinese robot, a vanishing Bill Gates, and a government scrambling to delete its own tweets.
Let’s start with the crown jewel of this embarrassment: the now-infamous robotic dog at the Galgotias University stall. Professor Neha Singh, in a moment of breathlessly confident ignorance, told a national broadcaster that this marvel of engineering was “developed” at the university’s Centre of Excellence. She touted its surveillance capabilities with the pride of a parent. It was a heartwarming story of homegrown talent—until the internet spent about five minutes looking at it. The “indigenous” innovation turned out to be a Unitree Go2, a commercially available robot from China one can buy for the price of a used hatchback.
The audacity is breathtaking. In an era where “Atmanirbhar Bharat” (Self-Reliant India) is shouted from the rooftops, a premier university thought it could slap a “Made in India” sticker on Chinese hardware and no one would notice. It reeks of a deep-seated insecurity: a need to project success so desperate that they are willing to fake it. And when the ruse was exposed? The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) reacted with panic. IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw reportedly shared the hype and then quietly deleted the tweet—a digital walk of shame that screams incompetence. The IT Secretary, S. Krishnan, had to step in like a disappointed headmaster, lecturing exhibitors that “misinformation can’t be encouraged.” It was humiliating.
But the robotic dog wasn’t the only thing that refused to hunt. The summit’s credibility took another nosedive when the titans of the industry decided they had better places to be. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang pulled out early, and then, in a crushing blow hours before his keynote, Bill Gates bailed. The official reason was “priorities,” but let’s read the room. When you combine the frantic scrubbing of Jeffrey Epstein-related headlines with an event that is currently trending for faking innovation, you don’t need an AI to predict why a global figure might want to distance himself. The stage that was meant for Gates was left echoing with the absence of serious leadership.
And the chaos on the ground? It was less “Artificial Intelligence” and more “Natural Stupidity.” Day 1 was a logistical nightmare. VIP security sweeps locking down venues, crowds crushing through poorly managed gates, and reports of device thefts in the mayhem. Opposition leaders weren’t wrong when they called it “rank mismanagement.” India invited the world to see its prowess, and instead showed that they couldn’t even organize a queue, let alone a global AI hub.
The tragedy here isn’t that Galgotias University tried to pass off a Korean drone or a Chinese robot as their own; the tragedy is that they felt they had to. It reveals a culture where the appearance of innovation is valued over the hard, grind-it-out reality of actual research. The nation appears so hungry for the label of “Global Superpower” that they are willing to build their reputation on a foundation of unboxing videos disguised as R&D.
As the exhibition halls suddenly shut off to the public on February 19 and the apologies from the “ill-informed” professor circulated, the damage was done. They wanted to show the world “India AI.” Instead, they showed “AI China” with an Indian accent. If this is the best they can offer, then God help them, because no amount of deleted tweets can hide the fact that the emperor—and his robot dog—has no clothes.
