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Silicon Valley meets New Delhi: Indian American AI pioneers at landmark summit
The high-profile attendee list features India-born CEOs leading global corporate giants.
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Ishani Duttagupta - Thu, 19, Feb 2026
- 02:53 EST
- 15
(Clockwise) Jay Chaudhary, Shantanu Narayen, Priya Donti, Ravi Mhatre, Raj Reddy, Navrina Singh. / Ishani Duttagupta
This week’s AI Impact Summit at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi has drawn a powerhouse assembly of government, academic and industry leaders. For many global Indian AI pioneers, the event marks a homecoming.
The high-profile attendee list features India-born CEOs leading global corporate giants — including Sundar Pichai (Google), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe), Nikesh Arora (Palo Alto Networks), Jay Chaudhry (Zscaler), Rajesh Subramaniam (FedEx) and Sanjay Mehrotra (Micron Technology) — alongside a distinguished group of researchers, founders and venture capitalists gathered to shape the future of AI.
The summit’s academic contingent includes Indian American researchers bridging cutting-edge theory with social impact. Priya Donti of MIT is presenting work on using machine learning to combat climate change, while Cornell’s Aditya Vashishtha is showcasing research on equitable AI for marginalized communities. Nikhila Natarajan of Rutgers adds a critical lens on how the next generation engages with AI in everyday media.
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The list also includes hardware and computer vision innovator Ramesh Raskar of the MIT Media Lab and Surya Ganguli of Stanford University, an expert at the intersection of physics and computer science. They are joined by cybersecurity and AI veterans Somesh Jha of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Subbarao Kambhampati of Arizona State University. Anchoring the group is Turing Award winner Raj Reddy of Carnegie Mellon University. A Padma Bhushan recipient and a foundational figure in robotics, Reddy’s presence bridges AI’s early breakthroughs with its ambitious future in India.
Among other notable participants are Dr. Archana Sharma, principal scientist at CERN in Geneva, who has worked on large-scale radiation detector experiments, and British Indian computer scientist Dr. Pushmeet Kohli, vice president of science at Google DeepMind, where he leads science and strategic initiatives. Kohli earned his BTech from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal, and later completed his PhD in computer vision at Oxford Brookes University.
Indian American-led startups are also set to take center stage. Key speakers include Amit Zavery, president, CPO and COO of ServiceNow, who oversees the company’s AI platform, engineering and cloud infrastructure. Joining him are Bipul Sinha, CEO, chairman and co-founder of Rubrik; Navrina Singh, founder and CEO of Credo AI; Raj Koneru, CEO and founder of Kore.ai; Umesh Sachdev, CEO and co-founder of Uniphore; and Vishal Sikka, founder and CEO of Vianai Systems.
Sinha, an IIT Kharagpur alumnus and venture partner at Lightspeed, brings deep experience in security and AI operations. Singh, a former Microsoft and Qualcomm executive, is a leading voice in AI governance and verification.
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From the venture capital community, Bejul Somaia and Ravi Mhatre, both partners at Lightspeed in Menlo Park, are attending the summit. Somaia brings more than 25 years of experience as a builder and early-stage investor, helping expand Lightspeed’s global footprint. Mhatre, a co-founder of Lightspeed, has partnered with founders across enterprise, IT, consumer and life sciences sectors, guiding companies through acquisitions and IPOs.
Hemant Taneja, CEO and managing director of General Catalyst, is another prominent investor at the summit. Known for backing applied AI across healthcare, defence and financial services, Taneja has overseen significant investments in AI-driven health systems.
Other Indian American technology leaders present include Aparna Bawa, COO of Zoom; Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer of Cisco; Prith Banerjee, senior vice president of innovation at Synopsys; Mustafa Furniturewala, CTO of Coursera; Rao Charagondla, CFO of IIT Bay Area Alumni and cloud program leader at Adobe; and Ravi Kumar S., CEO of Cognizant.
Pallavi Mahajan, global chief technology and AI officer at Nokia; Sanjay Sharma, vice president at ArcelorMittal; and Vivek Mahajan, CTO of Fujitsu Limited, are also among the well-known faces in New Delhi for the summit.
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