Indian University Ordered Out of AI Summit After Presenting Chinese Robot Dog as Its Own

India's flagship AI summit in New Delhi has been jolted by an embarrassing controversy after a private university was told to pack up its stall for showcasing a Chinese-made robot dog as if it were its own innovation, according to officials and local reports.dawn+3

How a Chinese robot dog became "Orion"

The flap centers on Galgotias University, which turned up at the India AI Impact Summit with a four-legged robot it introduced to TV cameras as "Orion" and implied was created at its in-house Centre of Excellence. Social media users quickly identified the machine as the Go2 model sold by Chinese firm Unitree Robotics for about 2,800 dollars, a widely available platform used by labs and universities around the world. Clips of the interaction went viral after the professor, Neha Singh, appeared on state broadcaster DD News describing the robot in a way critics said clearly suggested it was a homegrown product.aljazeera+2

Ordered out of India's AI showcase

Two government officials told reporters that summit organizers instructed Galgotias to vacate its exhibition space once the robot's true origin became a national talking point. One official said the university had been "asked to leave the expo," describing the move as necessary to protect the credibility of an event meant to market India's seriousness on AI to foreign leaders and tech giants. By Wednesday, some outlets reported the booth shuttered or unattended, even as a representative at the stand told Reuters they had not yet received formal written notice expelling them.bloomberg+4

University and professor push back

Galgotias has denied trying to pass off the Unitree robot as an original invention, insisting instead that students are legitimately using a "recently acquired" robot dog as a mobile classroom to test programming and AI models. Singh later said her televised remarks were misunderstood and that she never meant to claim the hardware itself was built from scratch at the university. A student exhibitor argued that the uproar has overshadowed genuine student projects at the stall, calling the reaction "uncalled for" and blaming a miscommunication rather than an attempt to deceive.bbc+4

Political firestorm and global optics

India's opposition Congress party seized on the episode to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government of turning the country into a "laughing stock" on AI just as New Delhi hosts nearly 20 world leaders and dozens of delegations for the five-day summit. In a sharply worded post on X, the party said the incident was "truly embarrassing" and "brazenly shameless," arguing that showcasing a Chinese robot as Indian undercuts the government's tech narrative. The scandal comes as India pitches itself as a voice for the Global South on AI governance and courts partnerships with firms like OpenAI, Google, and Nvidia on infrastructure and deployment.straitstimes+5

Bigger questions about innovation and credibility

Supporters of India's AI ambitions warn against letting one misstep overshadow the broader innovation on display, with the DD News reporter who first aired the segment urging viewers not to "lose faith" in a generation of young technologists because of a single dubious claim. Yet the robot dog saga has spotlighted a sensitive fault line: India's ecosystem still leans heavily on foreign hardware and frontier models, even as it markets itself as an emerging AI power. Critics say that when branding and political messaging collide with the realities of imported tech, it risks undercutting the very credibility India needs to lead global conversations on the future of artificial intelligence.