NEW DELHI, India: An Indian startup called Sarvam AI unveiled an artificial-intelligence model more tailored to the languages and cultures of the world's largest market than ChatGPT and Claude on February 18, but it was overshadowed by a report that a private Indian university had presented a Chinese robotic dog as its own, a day earlier.

Sarvam, a Bengaluru-based technology company, announced two new AI models at the AI summit in Delhi. The event highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push to make India a global leader in artificial intelligence.

Sarvam's AI models work through voice commands and support 22 Indian languages. The company says this gives it an advantage in a country of 1.45 billion people, where most people do not read, write, or type in English.

"Today we show we can bring our own AI to a billion Indians," said Sarvam co-founder Pratyush Kumar at the event.

Sarvam also provides "agentic" AI models. These systems can perform tasks such as writing code or planning meetings largely on their own, with little human help. The company believes these AI agents can help businesses automate work in one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

At the same summit, a private Indian university showcased a robotic dog and claimed it was its own innovation. Later, officials asked the university to leave the event.

According to two government officials, Galgotias University was told to close its stall one day after a professor, Neha Singh, told state-run broadcaster DD News that the robotic dog, named Orion, was developed by the university's Centre of Excellence.

However, internet users quickly identified the robot as the Unitree Go2, made by China's Unitree Robotics. The robot sells for about US$1,600 and is commonly used in research and education. Singh later said she never clearly claimed the dog was created by the university, only that it was on display.

In a statement, Galgotias University said it was "deeply pained" and called the incident a "propaganda campaign" that could hurt students' morale as they work to learn and innovate using global technologies.

Later, in another statement, the university apologized for the confusion. It said Singh was not authorized to speak to the media at the summit and was "ill-informed."

The India AI Impact Summit, promoted as a major event for the Global South, was attended by at least 20 heads of state and government. These included French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Business leaders also attended, including Sundar Pichai of Google, Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Brad Smith of Microsoft, and Yann LeCun, Executive Chairman of AMI Labs.