Visitors at Galgotias University’s booth during the AI Impact Summit, at Bharat Mandapam, in New Delhi, on Wednesday. The private university has been asked to vacate its stand at the summit after a controversy over displaying a robot dog made in China as its own innovation Image Source:-
The government on Wednesday asked Galgotias University to vacate the premises of the AI Impact Summit after it was found to be passing out a Chinese-made robot dog and a Korean-made drone with innovations developed in-house by its Center of Excellence. What appeared as a sideshow over misleading claims on Tuesday turned into a full-fledged controversy on Wednesday, making international headlines and overshadowing other discussions about the summit on social media.
#Watch | delhi | Galgotias University employees and officials are vacating their booth at the India AI Impact Summit, after a dispute over the display of a Chinese-made robotic dog.
According to sources, the government has asked Galgotias University to vacate the booth at the fair. pic.twitter.com/cqN5vBcgcN
— ANI (@ANI) February 18, 2026
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From social media to the mainline and opposition parties, the controversy surrounding Galgotias University has remained the main topic of discussion associated with the AI Summit. On Tuesday, a university representative, identified as Neha Singh, told DD News that the robotic dog on display at the booth is called ORION and that it was developed in-house at the university’s Center of Excellence. In a video that later went viral, she was seen claiming that the university had also developed a football drone, which was also displayed at the exhibition. It claimed that from the overall engineering to the implementation of the football drone, everything was done in-house.
Social media users quickly pointed out that the robotic dog was manufactured by Chinese company Unitree and is available for sale commercially. Later, it was also noted that the football drone is known as the Striker V3 ARF and its origin is in South Korea. In response to this issue, the government on Wednesday morning asked the university to vacate the building.
However, representatives of the Greater Noida-based university continued to defend their claims as “mere misrepresentation” and claimed that their statements had been misinterpreted. University representatives did not leave the scene, claiming that they had not received any instructions to do so. The entire issue turned into a huge drama at the venue as the electricity to the university wing was cut off while their representatives tried to weather the storm.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi criticized the government on social media, saying, “Instead of tapping into Indian talent and data, the AI Summit has become a disorganized PR spectacle – Indian data for sale, Chinese products on display.”
Eventually, the university band left the venue. By the evening, she issued a new statement in which she deeply apologized for the confusion at the summit and placed the blame on her representatives. “One of our representatives, who was managing the booth, was not aware of the technical origins of the products and, in her eagerness to appear on camera, provided factually incorrect information even though she was not authorized to speak to the press,” the university stated.
Posted on February 18, 2026
