AI Impact Summit 2026: 4 highlights from Google CEO Sundar Pichai

The AI ​​Impact Summit 2026 is currently taking place in New Delhi, India. Some of the world’s biggest tech companies are on hand to talk about the state of artificial intelligence, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who spoke at the event Thursday.

Pichai had some interesting things to say in his speech, and you can read a transcript of Pichai’s prepared remarks on the Google blog. The prepared remarks differ slightly from the live speech, posted on YouTube by Reuters.

1. New connections between the United States and India – literally

Google is building a “vast network of underwater fiber optic cables,” according to Pichai.

Google’s underwater cable network may not be entirely new, but the company’s investments in its expansion are. Pichai said Google was creating a “full-stack AI hub” as part of the company’s $15 billion infrastructure investment in India. This includes four new submarine fiber optic cable systems that are part of Google’s America-India Connect initiative.

2. Like SpaceX, Google plans to send data centers into space.

The idea of ​​data centers orbiting Earth was just briefly mentioned by Pichai, but it’s still notable because Elon Musk recently said the idea was one of the main reasons his space exploration company, SpaceX, acquired his AI company, xAI.

While discussing previously unimaginable technological advancements in India, where Pichai grew up and went to school, the Google CEO mentioned that he never imagined he would “one day spend time with teams figuring out how to place data centers in space.”

Like Mashable covered When Musk first pitched the idea, we were only in the early stages of the concept, but it’s certainly interesting to hear that Google is having similar discussions.

3. New uses of AI in medicine

Pichai also spent time discussing the use of AI for medicine and the discovery of new drugs. For example, Pichai highlighted Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold, an AI system that predicts the 3D structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence. It should be noted that, at least in the United States, AI-produced works are not protected by copyright. still questions on who would hold the patent. However, the CEO of Google nevertheless highlighted this aspect of AI.

4. How Google views AI accountability

And that brings us to Pichai’s conclusion, which focuses heavily on the responsibility of AI. Responsible AI has become a cliché in the tech world, especially considering the very real dangers of AI, both social and otherwise. However, Pichai said Google has taken steps to resolve these issues.

For example, to combat deepfakes, AI content generated by Google’s platforms has an invisible SynthID embedded in the output, which helps identify the content as AI-generated. Pichai also mentioned the importance of “facing profound economic changes” because “AI will undeniably reshape the workforce.” Pichai mentioned how the company has provided AI training to users and highlighted the important role that governments can and will play in regulating the technology.