Heavy Crowd at the AI India Impact Summit at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on February 18, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The India AI Impact Summit’s organisers removed a stall put up by Galgotias University at the summit’s expo, government officials said on Wednesday (February 18, 2026), after representatives exhibited a robodog (robotic dog) that was imported from China as though it were an original creation.
The product, a Unitree Go2 robot with a camera, was featured with representatives from the private university on Doordarshan. The public broadcaster later took down online clips it had posted from there.
“We don’t want unnecessary controversy that threatens to overshadow the good work other exhibitors are doing,” IT Secretary S. Krishnan said at a press conference. “There needs to be adherence to some code so that inauthentic behaviour is not promoted.”
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Galgotias University’s exhibit went viral after it emerged that a Unitree Go2 robodog was being shown off with different branding.
Galgotias University responds
Galgotias University said in a statement that it has not built robodog, or claimed to have built it, adding that their mission has always been to keep students ahead of the curve in technology, and that they have consistently brought in cutting-edge technologies from the U.S. to China into campus with this aim.
“The recently acquired Robodog from Unitree is one such step in that journey. It is not merely a machine on display — it is a classroom in motion. Our students are experimenting with it, testing its limits, and in the process, expanding their own knowledge. Let us be clear — Galgotias has not built this robodog, neither have we claimed. But what we are building are minds that will soon design, engineer, and manufacture such technologies right here in Bharat,” it added.
The Congress party said the government was making “a laughing stock of India globally,” with leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi saying that “instead of leveraging India’s talent and data, the AI summit is a disorganised PR spectacle,” with “Indian data up for sale, [and] Chinese products showcased.”
Published – February 18, 2026 11:49 am IST
