The landmark 10th edition of India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2026 concluded capping four days of substantive discourse, multilateral collaboration and technological showcases that reinforced India’s position as a global digital creator. Centred around the theme 'Scale Without Boundaries,' the concluding day translated high-level policy and standardisation into ground-level execution, spotlighting AI applications in agri-food systems, youth-led frontier robotics, autonomous 5G AI agents and the administrative imperatives of last-mile digital delivery.
From Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurating the IMC with a vision for indigenous IP and sovereign semiconductors, to Communications Minister Shri Jyotiraditya M. Scindia outlining India's target to anchor 10% of global 6G patents, the decadal edition solidified the nation’s leap from a consumer of technologies to an architect of global telecom standards.
Ramakrishna P., CEO, India Mobile Congress said, "The 10th edition of India Mobile Congress has set a decisive benchmark for how digital forums drive actionable transformation. Over the past four days, IMC 2026 demonstrated that India’s digital narrative is no longer confined to rollouts and scale; it is about setting international benchmarks, incubating sovereign technologies and driving purposeful innovation. From International 6G Symposium to our concluding focus on agricultural AI and youth robotics, this edition has shown the world that India is building an inclusive, resilient and self-reliant technological ecosystem that scales without boundaries."
Day 4 anchored deep sectoral applications, led by the Global Initiative on AI for Agri-Food Systems Meeting, organised in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Nurturing grassroots innovation and future-ready talent, the forum hosted the Robotics for Good Youth Challenge India, organised by the ITU and IIT Delhi’s I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics (IHFC), with support from the DoT.
Simultaneously, developer and developer-ecosystem capabilities took centre stage at the ITU Build-A-Thon, where engineers deployed autonomous AI agents tailored for 5G network orchestration, alongside interactive cyber challenges at the Digital Defence Games. The session 'Extra Mile for the Last Mile' examined sustainable financing mechanisms, rural broadband deployment and the infrastructural safeguards required to ensure that high-speed connectivity translates directly into economic empowerment for every gram panchayat.
Quotes from industry leaders and policymakers on the day 4 of India Mobile Congress 2026:
Dr. Bilel Jamoussi, Deputy Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), Chief of the Study Groups and Policy Department, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said, "Agriculture and food touch every person, every community and every country, and AI is now moving from laboratories into the real economy to help address their biggest pressures. But the true measure of an AI solution is not how sophisticated its algorithm is; it is whether it solves a real problem for a smallholder farmer. That is why AI must be developed with farmers, not just for them. International standards are central to this, because they do not slow innovation; they make it work at scale, helping prevent fragmentation so that solutions do not remain trapped in isolated pilots. Through cooperation across governments, international organizations, researchers, industry and investors, we can move from vision to actualization, and build a sustainable, resilient and secure food future for all."
Mr. Syed Tausif Abbas, Sr. DDG & Head, TEC, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said, "Connectivity links our farms, interoperability links our systems, and artificial intelligence links innovation with impact. But the success of this Global Initiative will be measured not only by technological advances, but by tangible improvements in farmers' livelihoods, agricultural productivity, supply chain efficiency and food security. For that, AI solutions must be transparent, inclusive and accessible, with due attention to data quality, privacy and the needs of small and marginal farmers, and supported by international standards that let solutions built in different countries work together effectively."
Devendra Singh, Deputy Director General, Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said, "Evaluating AI systems requires moving beyond traditional computing standards toward structured frameworks for fairness, transparency, and robustness. Bias in AI originates across multiple stages from uncurated training data and outliers to model selection and deployment environments. To address this, we assess risk across multiple tiers, combining domain specific metric evaluations with empirical testing across protected attributes and adverse conditions. A truly robust AI system must perform reliably in hostile or edge environments, maintain safety and security governance, and provide measurable, transparent outputs across every level of integration."
Debasish Mahalik, Deputy Director, Food and Agriculture Department, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) said, “AI-driven agriculture can deliver meaningful impact only when technology is supported by robust standards for data quality, privacy, security and interoperability. At the Bureau of Indian Standards, our focus is on developing a system-wide framework for digital agriculture that reflects India’s diverse farming ecosystems and includes small and marginal farmers. By bringing stakeholders together to build common standards, we can enable trusted, scalable and sustainable agricultural solutions that translate innovation into tangible benefits on the ground.”
Jan Redlich, CTO, Bonn Systems said, “AI in agriculture can only deliver on its promise when data can be shared across systems while ensuring farmers retain control over their data. Today, fragmented digital ecosystems create silos that limit interoperability, access and trust. The reference architecture developed by the Focus Group on AI for Agriculture addresses this through shared semantics, open interfaces and sovereignty by design. By building on existing standards for data models, identity and access, it enables applications and services to work across platforms. This allows new use cases to emerge without creating new silos, helping build a more connected, trusted and interoperable agricultural ecosystem.”
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