The Global Digital Health Summit (GDHS) 2026 will focus on the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across healthcare under the theme “Implementing Artificial Intelligence – AI in Action”. The summit will be held on 20-21 November 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.
The summit will examine questions around what works, what can be trusted, where AI can support clinical decision-making, where it can introduce risk, which technologies are ready to move beyond pilots, and what hospitals, clinicians, pharmaceutical companies and health systems should be doing.
Dr Rajendra Pratap Gupta, Chairman of the Global Digital Health Summit, said, “We will answer one of the most consequential questions in healthcare: AI has learned medicine, but has it learned to practise medicine? The CORTEX Test will move this debate from speculation to direct observation. Its findings could profoundly influence the future of medicine, the role of clinicians, and how we prepare the profession for an AI-enabled world”
The summit will focus on the implementation of AI across patient engagement, clinical care, hospital operations, pharmaceutical research and MedTech.
According to the organisers, healthcare is entering a phase where AI will increasingly move from an innovation portfolio into core workflows. Leaders will have to make decisions around evidence, interoperability, patient safety, governance, workforce redesign, investment and scale. GDHS 2026 will bring these decisions into the summit.
CORTEX Test to examine clinical intelligence
Among the highlights of GDHS 2026 will be The CORTEX Test, a controlled experiment in clinical intelligence.
The aim is to compare different forms of clinical intelligence and examine what changes when clinicians and AI work together. The findings could have implications for the future of medicine and the clinical profession, including how clinicians are trained, how human judgement and AI are combined, and how accountability and patient safety are incorporated into clinical practice.
Healthcare leaders to participate
The summit will bring together leaders from healthcare, regulation, digital transformation and AI adoption.
Among the Summit leadership are Mr Bakul Patel, Chair Emeritus, Global Digital Health Summit and Senior Director, Global Digital Health Strategy & Regulatory, Google; Dr Viviana Martínez-Bianchi, President, World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA); Dr T. Dileep Kumar, President, Indian Nursing Council and Board Member, ICN (SEARO); and Dr Rajendra Pratap Gupta, Co-Chair, Global Digital Health Summit.
They will be joined by leaders including Mr Rajat Gupta, former Managing Partner of McKinsey; Mr Arun Bhaskara Baba, CIO of Mayo Clinic; Prof. Ran D. Balicer, Deputy Director General and Chief Innovation Officer, Clalit Health Services, Israel; Susheel Ladwa, Chief Executive Officer, Onyx Health; Cheristi Cognetta-Rieke, Vice Chair Nursing – Enterprise Transformation, Mayo Clinic; Dr Peter Preziosi, President and CEO, TruMerit (CGFNS); and Sanjiv Navangul, Managing Director and CEO, Bharat Serums and Vaccines Limited.
The Indian policy and industry conversation will include Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Secretary, AYUSH, Government of India; Dr Rajeev Raghuvanshi, Drugs Controller General of India; and Anant Swarup, Secretary General, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), and former Additional Secretary, Government of India, among other senior leaders.
The summit will bring together perspectives from clinical practice, regulation, hospital strategy, nursing, pharma, data governance, investment and patient trust.
GDHS 2026 to focus on implementation
GDHS 2026 will include experiences around the Hospital of the Future, Clinician of the Future, Pharma of the Future and MedTech of the Future, bringing together technologies and workflows that are beginning to reshape healthcare delivery.
The programme will examine how ambient AI can alter a consultation, how predictive systems can influence beds, operating theatres and hospital command centres, how AI is changing drug discovery, trials, regulatory processes and real-world evidence, and how connected and intelligent medical devices should be governed once they begin to learn and act.
The AI Success Stories track will feature organisations that have moved beyond pilots and will discuss what was implemented, what it cost, where execution failed, what outcomes were achieved and what they would do differently.
The summit will also feature the Technology Recommendation Council (TRC), designed to examine healthcare technologies from the perspectives of clinicians, hospitals and governments. The CEOs’ Council for the Hospital of the Future will bring hospital leadership into an ongoing conversation around the architecture and operation of the next generation of hospitals.
Professional development will remain part of the programme, alongside the Digital Health Scientific Symposium, certifications and structured opportunities for healthcare professionals to assess their own AI and digital-health readiness. GDHS 2026 is also accredited by the Indian Nursing Council, offering 12 CNE hours and two CNE credits to eligible participants.
Focus on AI integration
Previous editions of GDHS have examined digital transformation, the changing healthcare workforce, AI, regulation, business models and the future of hospitals. The 2026 edition will focus on the implementation of AI across clinical pathways, hospital workflows, research, pharmaceutical development and patient care.
The summit will bring real-world experience and implementation lessons into the conversation.
For hospital leaders, the programme will focus on what is ready to deploy and what is not. For clinicians, it will examine the relationship between clinical judgement and machine intelligence. For pharma and MedTech leaders, it will focus on where AI is already compressing timelines and altering established operating models. For policymakers and regulators, it will examine what responsible implementation will require as adoption accelerates.
The CORTEX Test will examine the relationship between clinical intelligence and AI as healthcare moves towards implementation.
GDHS 2026 is supported by the Ministry of Ayush, Government of India, and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, through Startup India, Indian Nursing Council, and multiple bodies working in global health.