18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit: India Can Help Build the Global South’s HealthTech Future, But It Cannot Do It Alone

India’s HealthTech story is moving beyond adoption. The bigger question is whether India can become a technology partner for healthcare systems across the Global South.

The timing is significant. As New Delhi prepares to host the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit on September 12–13, public health and technology cooperation are part of the wider BRICS conversation. The BRICS Health Ministers’ track has also brought digital health and AI-enabled healthcare into focus.

India already has important building blocks.

The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is creating a national digital-health architecture, while eSanjeevani has demonstrated how technology can extend healthcare access at population scale. Indian innovators are working across diagnostics, clinical AI, medical devices and remote care.

But HealthTech leadership is not simply about having startups, platforms or AI pilots.

It requires clinical validation, interoperability, data protection, appropriate regulation and the ability to take successful innovations from pilot to real-world scale.

A recent CII-PwC assessment found that 93% of healthcare leaders see significant potential in AI and 64% have AI pilots, but only 11% have scaled AI into production. Data quality, workflow integration, clinician adoption and ROI remain barriers.

This is not necessarily a weakness. It is the next opportunity.

India’s policy architecture is evolving through ABDM, the National Digital Health Blueprint, the Digital Personal Data Protection framework and efforts to strengthen domestic medical-device manufacturing and testing.

The next phase should connect these foundations with international research, technology and investment partnerships.

This is where BRICS Health Diplomacy can become meaningful.

India can contribute experience in digital public infrastructure, affordable healthcare innovation, population-scale deployment, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and increasingly MedTech and AI-enabled solutions. At the same time, it can collaborate with BRICS economies where they have complementary capabilities in advanced technologies, diagnostics, research and healthcare delivery.

HealthTech diplomacy should be about more than exporting or importing technology. It can create pathways for co-development, joint research, technology transfer, clinical validation, investment and market access.

And this opportunity should extend beyond BRICS.

India’s HealthTech future should not be an either-or choice between the Global South and the West. The US and European ecosystems remain important sources of healthcare innovation, capital, research, advanced technologies and global market access. India can work with BRICS countries, the US, Europe, Japan and others wherever there is genuine potential for co-creation and healthcare impact.

So the question ahead of BRICS 2026 is not simply: Can India become a HealthTech leader?

It is

Can India become a HealthTech partner — helping solve healthcare challenges across the Global South while building strong international partnerships?

If India can connect policy, technology, clinical validation, capital and global partnerships, it could move beyond being one of the world’s largest healthcare markets to becoming a co-creator of affordable, scalable healthcare technology.

That is the HealthTech opportunity I will be watching as BRICS 2026 begins in New Delhi.

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