At the 18th BRICS Summit held in New Delhi, member states including China, the UAE, India, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan focused on expanding cooperation across critical minerals, clean-technology manufacturing, energy, and supply chains, CEO Insights Asia reported. India's 2026 presidency of the bloc encompassed more than 400 meetings and engagements across 30 cities to advance practical economic collaboration.
On the sidelines of the summit, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed bilateral cooperation spanning critical minerals, energy, artificial intelligence, space, and food security. A key project highlighted was a proposed $11.5 billion investment by the UAE's International Holding Company into an integrated greenfield aluminium project in Odisha, alongside potential investment deployment through L'Imad, described as the UAE's newest sovereign investment fund.
Ahead of China assuming the BRICS presidency in 2027, Chinese President Xi Jinping outlined initiatives aligned with China's 15th Five-Year Plan. These include establishing an open-source BRICS AI community to collaborate on large language models and training, supporting smart manufacturing and common factory standards, and forming an engineering talent alliance for skills recognition and youth exchanges.
The summit's New Delhi Declaration urged increased involvement of emerging economies in advanced manufacturing, resilient supply chains, and wider use of local currencies in trade. Partner countries and new members, including Kazakhstan and Indonesia, stressed the importance of domestic value addition and mineral processing over direct raw material export.
Sources
- CEO Insights Asia · 2026-09-25
