India is reshaping the BRICS agenda from traditional geopolitics to practical cooperation in digital payments, AI, and quantum tech, aiming to enhance development in the Global South.
India is using this year’s BRICS summit to push the grouping well beyond its familiar debates over trade balances, the dollar and geopolitics. As host, New Delhi is trying to recast BRICS as a forum for practical co-operation on digital payments, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, semiconductors and start-ups, according to the material released around the summit and reports from Indian business publications. The shift reflects India’s view that the bloc’s relevance will depend less on abstract anti-Western positioning than on whether it can build useful systems for the Global South.
That ambition is most visible in payments. India has been arguing that BRICS should not chase a common currency, but instead make it easier for members to settle trade in their own currencies through linked payment systems. The New Indian Express reported that New Delhi is pitching a cross-border digital payments framework, while Reuters-style reporting from other Indian outlets says finance officials have been weighing language and nomenclature for the idea. Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra has also pointed to interest in linking fast payment systems and, potentially, central bank digital currencies. Narendra Modi has used the summit to showcase Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, saying it handles roughly half of the world’s real-time payments.
India is pairing that payments pitch with a broader case for digital public infrastructure. The idea is to export the model behind UPI, digital identity and other interoperable systems as a development tool rather than a geopolitical weapon. Indian reports say New Delhi wants a digital public infrastructure repository and a start-up support fund under the BRICS umbrella, giving member countries a way to share software, technical standards and policy lessons. The practical appeal is clear: for economies with uneven banking access and fragmented payment rails, interoperability could make trade cheaper and faster without forcing political agreement on a single currency.
Artificial intelligence is being framed in similarly pragmatic terms. Rather than treating AI only as a matter of regulation or competition among major powers, India wants BRICS to focus on access to computing power, data, skills and infrastructure. At the BRICS Bharat Innovates exposition in New Delhi, Indian officials and exhibitors highlighted applications in healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing and logistics. The showcase included AI-enabled cervical cancer screening, maternal and foetal monitoring, satellite infrastructure tools, fruit grading systems and warehouse robotics, underscoring India’s effort to present AI as a mass-use technology rather than a luxury for large tech groups.
Quantum technology marks the most forward-looking part of the agenda. India is positioning the field alongside semiconductors, critical minerals and biotechnology as a strategic capability that emerging economies should not leave to a handful of advanced states. The exposition in New Delhi displayed an Indian 64-qubit quantum processor and an eight-qubit system aimed at education and research. That may sound abstract, but the implications are concrete: quantum computing could eventually affect cybersecurity, communications and scientific research, and BRICS members appear to want a seat at that table before the technology matures further.
The wider message from New Delhi is that BRICS should become a platform for building technological capacity, not just issuing political statements. That is a notable evolution for a bloc long defined by demands for a larger voice for emerging economies. If India gets its way, the summit will be remembered less for slogans about de-dollarisation and more for a push to connect payment systems, share digital infrastructure and widen access to frontier technology.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to inform and educate, not to recommend or endorse any financial product, investment or strategy. Please consider your own financial circumstances and seek professional advice where appropriate before making financial decisions.
