- Third IIMA Healthcare Summit to bring policymakers, healthcare leaders, researchers and innovators together on August 22
- ‘Advancing AI in Healthcare’ takes centre stage as India pursues the vision of Swasth Bharat as the foundation for Viksit Bharat
- Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel to deliver keynote address as Chief Guest
- India Pharma Archives and a publication on the country’s COVID-19 vaccine journey to be launched at the summit
NE HEALTH & EDUCATION BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, AUG 20
Can artificial intelligence do more than make healthcare faster—and actually help make it more accessible, affordable, predictive, personalised and equitable? And as India races towards its 2047 developed-nation vision, is AI destined to become merely another technology layer in healthcare, or could it fundamentally redraw the way the country prevents disease, diagnoses patients, develops medicines and delivers care?
These questions will be at the heart of the IIMA Healthcare Summit 2026, as the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) brings government, industry and academia together on August 22 for its third edition, themed “Advancing AI in Healthcare.”
Anupriya Patel, Union Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare and Chemicals & Fertilisers, Government of India, will deliver the Keynote Address as Chief Guest, adding a significant policy dimension to a summit that seeks to examine how artificial intelligence can reshape India’s healthcare ecosystem.
The summit is being convened by the IIMA Healthcare Alumni Special Interest Group, comprising more than 400 alumni in leadership positions across the healthcare sector, in association with IIMA’s Centre for Management of Health Services (CMHS).
At its core is a larger proposition: Swasth Bharat must be the foundation of Viksit Bharat—and AI could become one of the most consequential tools in building that foundation.
From policy to patient: AI’s healthcare moment
The summit comes at a time when AI is rapidly moving from experimental laboratories and technology demonstrations into real-world healthcare applications.
The deliberations will examine AI’s role across a broad spectrum—from policy imperatives for India@2047, research and innovation to industry applications, healthcare leadership and the transformation of the healthcare value chain.
The discussions are expected to look beyond the technology itself and examine a more fundamental question: What does it take to build an AI-ready healthcare system?
That means addressing not merely algorithms and computing power, but also leadership, data, regulation, clinical adoption, ethics, innovation and the ability to translate technological breakthroughs into measurable improvements in patient outcomes.
A showcase of AI-enabled startups will further bring the innovation ecosystem into the conversation, focusing on solutions addressing some of India’s most pressing healthcare challenges.
IIMA’s AI-healthcare bridge grows strong
The summit represents another step in IIMA’s expanding engagement with the intersection of healthcare and artificial intelligence.
The institute’s Centre for Management of Health Services has played a continuing role in healthcare research, management education and public-policy thought leadership. Its engagement with responsible AI in healthcare has also gathered institutional momentum.
CMHS’ Conference on Responsible AI Innovation in Healthcare, held in October 2025, was designated by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology as an Official Pre-Summit event of the AI Impact Summit 2026.
The establishment of the Krishnamurthy Tandon School of Artificial Intelligence at IIMA has further strengthened the institute’s institutional platform for research, education and initiatives at the intersection of AI and management.
The Healthcare Summit thus sits within a wider IIMA ecosystem connecting faculty research, alumni leadership, executive education, healthcare management and emerging technologies.
Two launches to preserve India’s healthcare memory
The August 22 summit will also look backwards even as it looks towards an AI-driven future.
Two significant initiatives documenting important chapters in India’s healthcare and pharmaceutical history will be launched.
The India Pharma Archives seeks to preserve and chronicle the evolution of the Indian pharmaceutical industry while creating a substantial digital archival record of the sector.
Alongside it will be a publication documenting India’s COVID-19 vaccine development journey, capturing an important chapter in the country’s scientific, pharmaceutical and institutional response to one of the most consequential global health crises in modern history.
The twin initiatives introduce an important dimension to the summit: the future of healthcare cannot be built without preserving the lessons of its past.
400+ healthcare leaders, one national conversation
The summit’s alumni network gives it a distinctive industry connect.
The IIMA Healthcare Alumni Special Interest Group brings together more than 400 alumni in leadership roles across healthcare, creating a broad professional network spanning different segments of the sector.
That ecosystem could prove particularly significant in translating conversations around AI from conference rooms into institutions, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, startups, policy platforms and healthcare delivery systems.
The emphasis on government, industry and academia is equally important. AI-driven healthcare cannot be built by technology companies or hospitals alone; it requires policy frameworks, clinical expertise, management capabilities, research institutions, responsible innovation and patient-centric implementation to converge.
From summit to platform: Building healthcare’s AI future
Three editions into its journey, the IIMA Healthcare Summit is evolving beyond an annual gathering into a platform for evidence, policy dialogue and partnerships.
Its distinguishing proposition is the attempt to bring different parts of the healthcare ecosystem into one conversation—government policymakers, industry leaders, academics, researchers, healthcare professionals and emerging innovators.
The 2026 edition gives that conversation an even sharper focus.
AI is no longer simply a futuristic proposition for healthcare. It is increasingly influencing diagnostics, drug discovery, clinical decision-making, health data, hospital operations, medical research and patient engagement. The real challenge now is to determine how India can deploy AI responsibly and at scale while ensuring that innovation serves public health rather than widening existing inequalities.
That is where the IIMA Healthcare Summit’s central theme assumes significance.
As India moves towards 2047, the defining question may not be whether AI will enter healthcare—it already has.
The more consequential question is whether India can harness AI to create a healthcare system that is smarter without becoming impersonal, more technologically advanced without becoming exclusionary, and globally competitive without losing sight of the patient.
The IIMA Healthcare Summit 2026 intends to put that question firmly on the national table.
