Jammu, February 18 – Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah criticized Galgotias University of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday for displaying a commercially available, Chinese-made robotic dog at the Artificial Intelligence (AI) summit in New Delhi and claiming it to be the university's own innovation.
Omar Abdullah criticized the private university by posting on X: "This is what Galgotias teaches its students – to copy someone else's work and claim it as your own. When you get caught, you don't admit it and apologize; instead, you make excuses. When that doesn't work, you throw an employee under the bus and blame them for everything to save yourself. Thank God, this is not the education I received."
Earlier, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had criticized the AI summit, saying on X, "Instead of leveraging India's talent and data, the AI summit is a disorganized PR spectacle – Indian data up for sale, Chinese products showcased."
Galgotias University was asked to withdraw from the top artificial intelligence summit in New Delhi on Wednesday after one of its staff members displayed a commercially available robotic dog made in China, claiming it was the university's own innovation.
According to officials, Galgotias University was ordered to take down its stand at the summit a day after the university's professor of communications, Neha Singh, said that the robotic dog, Orion, was developed by the Centre of Excellence at the university.
However, internet users quickly identified the robot as the Unitree Go2, sold by China's Unitree Robotics, with a starting price tag of $1,600, and widely used in research and education.
On Wednesday, Singh told reporters that she never explicitly claimed the dog was the university's own creation, but only as an exhibit.
As part of its damage control PR exercise, the Galgotias University said in a statement that the university was "deeply pained" and described the incident as a "propaganda campaign" that could spread negativity and harm the morale of students working to innovate, learn, and build their skills using global technologies.