Indian university suffers humiliation for passing off Chinese robot as indigenous at AI summit

NEW DELHI – An Indian private university has been ordered to vacate its stall at a major AI summit after it falsely presented a Chinese-made robot as its own innovation.

The incident occurred at the “India AI Impact Summit”, a major event being held in New Delhi.

Reports said Professor Neha Singh from Galgotias University’s communications department had claimed during an interview with state-run news outlet, “You must meet Orion, which has been developed by the Galgotias University Centre of Excellence.”

However, social media users quickly pointed out that the robot was, in fact, a model called “Unitree Go 2” made by the Chinese company Unitree Robotics. The robot, priced at around $2800, is widely used in academic and research settings around the world.

The matter gained further attention when India’s IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shared the video clip of the robot on his social media account. The post was later deleted following widespread backlash.

In response, Galgotias University and Professor Singh clarified that the robot was not an indigenous creation, and they had never made such a claim.

However, the controversy has sparked significant criticism and has been described as an embarrassment to India’s aspirations in the field of artificial intelligence.

India’s main opposition party, the Congress, also expressed strong disapproval of the incident, stating on social media, “The Modi government has made India the laughing stock of the world when it comes to AI.”