At India AI Impact Summit 2026, Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw chaired a strategic convening of industry, academia and policymakers to set AI priorities for the Manufacturing Engineering Technology (MET) ecosystem. The meeting included academicians from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Technology Madras and executives from firms including Microsoft India, Dell, Cisco, Hitachi and Intel. The minister outlined priorities on adoption, skills development and inclusive growth, linking the agenda to the national vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.

The event marked the launch of a White Paper Concept on AI for MET, presenting a strategic framework to embed AI across manufacturing value chains to drive productivity, sustainability and global competitiveness. The concept proposes coordinated pathways for industry, academia and policymakers and envisages a MET platform convened by NAMTECH to provide shared governance and execution. It builds on an Industry-Academia Roundtable held in May 2025 and aims to place manufacturing at the core of growth and decarbonisation plans.

Participants emphasised that AI is a foundational enabler of productivity, competitiveness and innovation and that progress requires moving from capability to application through sustained collaboration. Industry leaders highlighted the importance of shop floor deployment and targeted skilling to enable MSMEs and strengthen resilient manufacturing value chains. Cybersecurity specialists urged attention to operational technology security and to integrating modern network security principles into education to ready students for workplace deployment.

NAMTECH signalled that it will mobilise industry, academia and government through the MET platform to accelerate adoption and talent development and to enable day zero deployment of trained personnel. The minister urged NAMTECH to develop advanced talent to help India emerge as a major manufacturer of precision equipment and to translate technological capability into industrial outcomes on the ground. The convening set out a mission driven, collaborative approach to translate research and innovation into real world production benefits.