India's BRICS Chairmanship Agenda
Published: September 8, 2026 | Updated: September 8, 2026 | Category: Technology | By Mahesh
India is pushing to complete a set of multilateral technology initiatives during its current chairmanship of the expanded, 11-member BRICS grouping, seeking closer government and research cooperation among member states in artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, quantum technology and semiconductor materials, according to reporting published September 7 by Outlook India, which cited Economic Times and Firstpost accounts of the discussions.[1] Indian officials told Economic Times the government wants to finalize several of these initiatives ahead of the upcoming BRICS Summit.
The centerpiece proposal is the Global Research Advanced Infrastructure Network, or GRAIN, described as a system that would give researchers across BRICS member countries shared access to high-performance computing infrastructure and supercomputing resources. A second initiative under development is a digital science and research repository that would let participating countries share datasets and research capabilities, particularly in advanced materials engineering and functional nanostructures, according to the same reporting.
The Chip-Design Piece Specifically
Beyond shared computing infrastructure, India is separately pushing a mechanism aimed squarely at the semiconductor design and deep-tech startup ecosystem. According to Firstpost's reporting, cited in the Outlook India account, India is looking at connecting chip-design and deep-tech startups across BRICS member countries through a proposed Startup Innovation Fund and Incubator Network. The framing here is distinct from the broader compute-sharing proposal: rather than pooling existing infrastructure, this initiative is aimed at capital formation, giving chip-design startups across BRICS countries a shared funding and incubation mechanism they could not access individually at the same scale.
These proposals are not being built from scratch. According to the Economic Times reporting cited by Outlook India, the initiatives draw directly on policy infrastructure India has already developed domestically, specifically AIkosh, the government's existing platform for non-personal datasets, and the IndiaAI Mission's common computing infrastructure. In effect, India is proposing to extend its own domestic AI data and compute architecture outward into a shared BRICS-wide system, positioning existing Indian government infrastructure as the template other member states would plug into rather than building parallel systems independently.
The Russia Track Running in Parallel
This multilateral push is unfolding alongside a distinct, bilateral track between India and Russia specifically, one focused less on shared research infrastructure and more on physical manufacturing and technology transfer. Russian companies across aviation, energy, nuclear technology and heavy industry are exploring manufacturing partnerships and technology-transfer opportunities in India under the country's Make in India initiative, according to the Outlook India report. That exploration is being formalized through Innoprom.India, a joint industrial exposition scheduled to run September 9 to 11, immediately ahead of the BRICS Summit itself.
A specific plenary session on September 10 will bring together Russian Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov and Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, according to the reporting, with an agenda covering bilateral trade, investment, market access and joint industrial projects. Organisers have identified artificial intelligence as an emerging area for potential cooperation within that broader industrial agenda, alongside more established sectors like aviation and nuclear power, though the reporting is explicit that the scale of any potential technology-transfer agreements or manufacturing investments arising from these discussions is not yet known.
Why This Matters Beyond a Diplomatic Communique
Reading these two tracks together, the multilateral GRAIN and startup fund proposals, and the bilateral India-Russia manufacturing exploration, clarifies what India is actually attempting with its current BRICS chairmanship. Building advanced AI systems requires enormous computing resources, large datasets, specialized talent and supporting physical infrastructure, and not every country inside the BRICS grouping can independently build every layer of that stack at competitive scale. A shared compute network like GRAIN and a pooled chip-design startup fund are both structured around the same underlying logic: letting member countries combine complementary strengths rather than each attempting to replicate the full AI and semiconductor value chain independently.
This connects to a broader pattern of countries and blocs outside the traditional US-China AI axis actively building alternative infrastructure and cooperation frameworks this year. It also sits inside a specific geopolitical backdrop worth noting explicitly: the upcoming summit will be only the second BRICS gathering to include the bloc's newer partner nations, Malaysia, Nigeria and Vietnam, expanding the grouping's reach considerably beyond its founding five members. Whether GRAIN and the proposed startup fund move from stated agenda items into actual, funded, operational infrastructure is a separate question from whether they get formally announced at the summit, and the practical test of India's chairmanship will be whether these proposals survive the transition from proposal to implementation once the summit itself concludes.
What to Watch Next
The most concrete near-term signal will be what actually gets formally agreed at the BRICS Summit itself, following the Innoprom.India exposition and the September 10 ministerial plenary. Given that these proposals are explicitly framed as initiatives India wants to "complete" during its current chairmanship, the summit's formal communique and any accompanying joint statements will indicate whether GRAIN and the Startup Innovation Fund move from proposal to a committed, funded initiative, or remain aspirational agenda items carried forward to a future chairmanship.
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Article by Depth Grid News Desk | depthgrid.in