India’s BRICS Chairship to host $1 trillion Global Sovereign Capital summit
India, holding the BRICS Chairship for 2026, is set to host the inaugural iBRICS Global Sovereign Capital Summit in New Delhi on 12–13 September, alongside the 18th BRICS Leaders' Summit at Bharat Mandapam.
The summit is designed to bring together sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and family offices collectively managing assets of around USD 1 trillion, along with institutional investors, finance ministers and business leaders from BRICS member and partner states.
Discussions are expected to focus on channelling sovereign capital into bankable infrastructure, energy and digital-capacity projects, along with non-dollar settlement corridors and interoperability between fast-payment systems such as India's UPI and Brazil's Pix.
This is India's fourth BRICS Chairship, with the 2026 theme centred on resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability.
BRICS Grouping and India's Chairship
BRICS is an intergovernmental grouping of major emerging economies that began as an informal grouping (BRIC) in 2006–2009 and expanded to include South Africa in 2010, taking its current name. It has since undergone further expansion, admitting Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE in 2024 and Indonesia in January 2025, alongside a wider circle of "partner countries."
Key Details
- Original members: Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC, first summit 2009); South Africa joined in 2010.
- 2023 Johannesburg Summit approved expansion; new full members joined in 2024–25 (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE, Indonesia), taking BRICS membership into double digits alongside partner-country status for several others.
- India has chaired BRICS four times: 2012 (New Delhi), 2016 (Goa), 2021 (virtual, due to the pandemic), and 2026, with the chairship rotating annually among members.
Hosting the iBRICS summit as a marquee side-event of the 18th BRICS Summit reflects India's chairship priority of positioning BRICS as a platform for concrete economic outcomes (capital mobilisation, payment interoperability) rather than only political coordination.
New Development Bank (NDB) and BRICS Financial Architecture
The New Development Bank, the principal financial institution of BRICS, was conceived to reduce dependence on Western-dominated multilateral lenders (like the World Bank and IMF) for infrastructure and sustainable development financing in emerging economies.
The iBRICS Summit's focus on non-dollar settlement corridors and sovereign capital flows into infrastructure builds directly on the NDB's original mandate, positioning it as one channel (alongside private sovereign funds) for financing emerging-market infrastructure outside dollar-denominated systems.
Sovereign Wealth Funds and Cross-Border Infrastructure Investment
Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are state-owned investment vehicles that deploy national savings (often from commodity revenues or foreign exchange reserves) into long-term assets, including overseas infrastructure, to generate returns and diversify national wealth.
Key Details
- Major global SWFs and pension/family-office capital pools cumulatively manage several trillion dollars; the iBRICS Summit specifically targets pools totalling roughly USD 1 trillion for the BRICS and partner-country region.
- India's own sovereign investment vehicle, the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), was set up in 2015 to attract long-term overseas capital, including from foreign sovereign funds, into Indian infrastructure.
- Global infrastructure financing gaps in emerging markets are commonly cited as running into trillions of dollars annually, making sovereign capital mobilisation a recurring theme at multilateral platforms such as G20 and BRICS.
By convening sovereign funds directly with infrastructure, energy and digital project sponsors across BRICS and partner nations, the iBRICS Summit seeks to translate the bloc's aggregate financial firepower into bankable cross-border investment, a long-standing gap in emerging-market development finance.
- 18th BRICS Summit: 12–13 September, Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi; India's 2026 chairship theme: "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability."
- iBRICS Global Sovereign Capital Summit: convened by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit; targets sovereign capital pools of approximately USD 1 trillion; expected to draw 500-plus institutional participants.
- BRICS original members (2009–2010): Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa; expanded in 2024–25 to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE and Indonesia.
- New Development Bank: proposed by India in 2012, founded 2014 (Fortaleza), operational 2015, headquartered in Shanghai; first President K.V. Kamath (India).
- India's BRICS chairships: 2012, 2016, 2021, 2026 (fourth time).