On Thursday, January 29, 2026, the Franco-Indian workshop — a preparatory event to the AI Impact
Summit — “Urban AI Forum: Rethinking Cities Leveraging Artificial Intelligence” was held on the
IIIT Hyderabad campus. Organized by the iSPIRT Foundation, Bordeaux Métropole, IIIT-H, and
Nasscom, in partnership with IUDX, the Smart City Research Center Hyderabad, the Smart Cities
Mission of Bordeaux Métropole, the Hyderabad Urban Lab, the Paris Region Institute, Dassault
Systèmes, and the Government of Telangana, the event featured four roundtables attended by
approximately one hundred participants. The last three roundtables were open to the public.
The diversity of the participants, mostly French and Indian, from Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Paris,
and Bordeaux, was impressive: university professors specializing in Data Science (IUDX, Institut
Paris Région), policymakers (NITI Aayog’s Frontier Tech Hub, Hexagon, Raminfo, GHMC),
researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRD, Hyderabad Urban Lab, IIT-H), as well as
public project leaders (Nasscom, SPEED projects of the Telangana government) all distinguished
themselves and collectively identified future directions.
The entire event was organized and coordinated by our AI expert, Professor Francis Rousseaux, with
significant support from Bordeaux Métropole in Hyderabad.
The aim was to explore the possibilities offered by AI in the design and development of cities and
urban environments, through Franco-Indian cooperation. A closer relationship was also established
between Institut Paris Région and the India Urban Data Exchange, with a view to scientific and
applied cooperation.
Results:
- More than 20 speakers, 120 participants in person in Hyderabad;
- A rich repository of content, including speaker presentations, slides and recordings (XXX).