India took over the BRICS chairmanship on 1 January 2026 — its fourth time holding it — and is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit on 12-13 September at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. This piece covers what was on the confirmed agenda going in. Final declarations and any deals signed during the two days aren't reflected here; check the official BRICS and Ministry of External Affairs releases for what was actually agreed.
The theme and who's in the room
India's chairmanship theme is "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability," framed under a broader "Humanity First" approach. The bloc itself is bigger than the original five (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa): Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have since joined, so the 2026 summit is a meaningfully larger table than earlier BRICS meetings.
What's on the AI and tech agenda
Ministerial and working-level BRICS meetings ahead of the summit produced proposals spanning trade, digital payments, AI and technology, energy, health, agriculture, startups, MSMEs, climate and urban infrastructure. On AI specifically, India's stated agenda priorities are cooperation on artificial intelligence, fintech, cybersecurity, digital identity and interoperable payment systems — building on the AI governance groundwork BRICS laid down in 2025 (see our companion post on the BRICS AI governance declaration).
For an Indian AI business, the practical things worth watching out of a summit like this are less about grand declarations and more about the boring-but-useful stuff: interoperable digital-payment standards (relevant if you sell AI tools with cross-border billing), any cooperation framework on AI compute/chip access among member states, and whether "digital sovereignty" language in the outcome documents translates into anything concrete for data-residency rules.