AI and National Security

India hosted the AI Impact Summit in February 2026, using the platform to release India AI Governance Guidelines — a principle-based framework touching on autonomous weapons and surveillance tools — while positioning itself as a norms-shaper rather than a passive rule-taker in military AI governance. On the institutional side, India has established the Defence AI Council (DAIC) and Defence AI Project Agency (DAIPA), and continues to expand AI-based border surveillance.

Analysts, however, flag a persistent "capability-integration gap" versus China and the US: slow, risk-averse defence procurement, an AI talent shortage within the defence ecosystem, and fragmented inter-service data architecture. The IndiaAI Mission has onboarded over 38,000 GPUs (against a 100,000 target) for subsidised compute, and India's cybersecurity spending is projected to hit $3.4 billion in 2026 — up nearly 12% year-on-year — driven partly by AI-enabled threats. The broader anxiety, sharpened by China's 2026 demonstration of a single operator controlling 200+ coordinated drones, is that AI-enabled swarm warfare could outpace India's current doctrine and integration timelines.