Ex-Meta chief AI scientist praises 'enthusiastic participants' after surprise visit at Delhi Summit

Former Meta AI chief scientist Yann LeCun at the AI Impact Summit being held in Delhi.

A few hours after creating waves both at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi and on social media with his surprise visit, ex-Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun shared a few selfies clicked with "enthusiastic participants" on LinkedIn.

"A collective selfie with enthusiastic participants at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi," he wrote.

LeCun, one of the most influential figures in modern AI research, had recently been in global news for planning to leave Meta to start a new AI research company. Although there has been no official announcement, LeCun mentioned in his LinkedIn bio that January was his last month at the tech giant.

His presence at the Delhi summit — India’s most high‑profile AI gathering of 2026 — naturally drew interest from the tech community. One of the attendees who recognised him shared a picture on X and expressed disbelief that LeCun went through “all the security checks like a normie,” adding that it was surprising that “no one here in India recognises him at our so‑called great Global AI Impact Summit.”

Look who I spotted at the AI Impact Summit today in Delhi...!!

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It's @ylecun – Meta's Chief AI Scientist. But what's wrong here is that even he's going through all the security checks like a normieee...!! I believe this guy has done enough for humanity to deserve a direct… pic.twitter.com/3005cWphFz — Pushkar (@86pushkar24) February 18, 2026

While the techie added that he did not approach the former Meta AI chief scientist, others, however, took the plunge and even managed to get autographs.

Lucky enough to get to meet him and get an autograph.... pic.twitter.com/us0uL2snug — Aakash (@Aakash_jais03) February 18, 2026

Another attendee who was present when LeCun was taking the selfies but wasn't in them, even shared a picture from the moment looked like from the sidelines.

Neil Lawrence, a professor of machine learning at the University of Cambridge, shared 'the view from the side' on LinkedIn.

Yann LeCun's views on AI in India

Earlier, in an interview with Moneycontrol, LeCun had urged India to embrace open source and invest in research to become an AI hub like France. India must take greater participation in the research community, not just in engineering and product development, as this would encourage students to explore AI careers within the country, he had said.

"We created a research lab in Paris, France, about 10 years ago, and it had an enormous effect on the local ecosystem... It motivated students to, instead of going into finance, to do a PhD in AI. Some of those people we hired at FAIR, but most of them went into the ecosystem and did startups," he said, adding that India can follow a similar model. "Probably, centered on Southern India - Bengaluru or Chennai (IIT Madras), and perhaps others," he said.