What China’s BRICS open-source AI push means for India and the global AI race

India, meanwhile, is not only emerging as a producer of AI technologies but is also one of the world’s largest potential markets for AI adoption.Chinese President Xi Jinping, speaking at the 2026 BRICS Summit in India, proposed creating a BRICS open-source artificial intelligence community to deepen cooperation among member countries on large language models, AI training and shared digital infrastructure.Xi said China would take the lead in establishing a “BRICS AI open-source community”, support collaboration on large language models, organise specialised AI seminars and training programmes, and work towards building an open AI ecosystem.China’s push to expand its AI ecosystem With BRICS countries stepping up cooperation on artificial intelligence, China’s push for an open-source AI ecosystem is being viewed from multiple perspectives.

More significantly, the initiative is seen as an attempt to challenge Western dominance in AI and create greater opportunities for companies and startups across BRICS economies.Xi Jinping’s proposal is also being viewed as a way for China to expand the global adoption and influence of its growing ecosystem of open-weight AI models.India’s AI ecosystem stands to gain For India, which is rapidly emerging as a major AI ecosystem with a growing number of startups and rising investment, deeper cooperation within BRICS could provide greater access to open-source models, technical expertise and shared AI infrastructure.China has increasingly linked its push for open AI with improving access for developing economies.

Chinese officials have pointed to models such as DeepSeek and Qwen while arguing that AI technologies should become more affordable and accessible globally.India, meanwhile, is not only emerging as a producer of AI technologies but is also one of the world’s largest potential markets for AI adoption.

Greater access to the Indian market could therefore benefit Chinese AI developers in the longer term, while giving Indian startups and developers a wider pool of models and technologies to build on.