BENGALURU: Bengaluru will host the 7th edition of GAFX 2026 at hotel Lalit Ashok in the city from February 27 to March 1. Organised by the Government of Karnataka in coordination with the Association of Bangalore Animation Industry (ABAI) and Startup Karnataka, the summit is centred around the theme, Evolution Reloaded.
This year, the summit will feature special sessions on major Indian productions, including Kantara Chapter 1, Netflix’s Kurukshetra, Mahavatar Narasimha, Dhurandhar and Lokah. Besides, it will also include a book-to-screen session on Indian mythology with author Anand Neelkanthan, along with cinematography and virtual production sessions featuring Directors of Photography from Kantara, Baahubali and OG.
With over 200 speakers across more than 100 sessions, GAFX will host global experts from leading studios such as ILM, Netflix and more. The event will feature making-of sessions from Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated projects, a strong gaming track, world-class VFX masterclasses, the GAFX Art Challenges and more.
Addressing a press conference on Monday, IT, BT Minister Priyank Kharge said, “With Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking over the market, it has led to evolution in the AVGC sector also. At the summit, we will discuss the evolution in the system, business, if AVGC policy in Karnataka needs a change due to AI and how we can help aspiring youngsters who want to make it big in AVGC. We want to accelerate this momentum which we started six years ago through such debates and discussions at GAFX 2026.”
Emphasising on the Orange Economy that has been given importance in the Union Buget 2026, Kharge said, “The global creative economy is valued close to two trillion dollars and India’s Orange Economy has a potential of 35 billion dollars.
In 2024, India recorded over 20% increase in IT exports compared to the previous years and exports worth 11 billion dollars related to AVGC was from India. More than 50% of these exports was from Karnataka.
There are 15,000 AVGC professionals in the state and our AVGC policy 2018 has been extended to AVGC-XR 2024-29 under which Rs 150 crore has been allocated for the development of this sector in 2025.”