Indian university faces backlash at AI summit over misrepresented robot

Galgotias University was asked to vacate its stall at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi after its representative was accused of presenting the Unitree Go2, a commercially available robotic dog made by China’s Unitree Robotics, as a university-developed product, according to The Times of India.

The situation escalated after IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shared a clip featuring comments by a Galgotias University communications professor on his official social media account. The post was later deleted following backlash.

As of Wednesday morning, the university’s stall remained open, with officials responding to media inquiries. A representative said the university had not received any formal communication asking it to leave the event, although several media outlets and an international news agency have reported otherwise.

Despite criticism over the incident, India’s artificial intelligence industry secured more than $100 billion in investment pledges during the event, including commitments from major Indian and international companies. In addition, welcoming remarks from Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with speeches by Google’s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei are expected at the event on Thursday.