For years, BRICS was an abbreviation with an ambitious notion attached: Brazil, Russia, India and China wanted a louder role in a global system mainly established by the West.

That world is gone.

BRICS has grown tremendously and now accounts for over 40% of the world’s population and about a quarter of the world’s GDP. Its expansion has also complicated the grouping, combining economies with quite varied interests, political systems and interactions with the current global order.

India’s BRICS chairmanship in 2026, therefore, has come at an interesting time.

The debate today is no about whether BRICS can challenge the established economic system.

The most crucial question is: can India help establish a new one without becoming caught between rival global powers?

India’s growing role in BRICS is part of a much larger transformation in the country’s economic position. The opportunities emerging across trade, technology, capital and global markets are increasingly connected to India’s next economic chapter.

BRICS is Evolving Beyond a Political Club

The 18th BRICS Summit in September 2026 issued an extremely comprehensive New Delhi Declaration. It advocated reform of global economic governance, enhanced representation for emerging and developing economies, intensified collaboration on supply chains, deeper economic integration and more efficient cross-border payment mechanisms.

That matters because the world economy is breaking apart.

Trade barriers are altering supply chains. Technology is becoming a strategic infrastructure. Industrial policy is being shaped by energy security. Geopolitical pressures have laid bare the weaknesses of existing dependence and countries are exploring for alternatives.

BRICS is placing itself in that transition.

But there is a critical difference.

It’s not necessarily about building a whole other global economic system.

“It is about bringing additional possibilities for growing economies in it.

And that may be a more practical and consequential objective.

The dollar isn’t the whole story

Concerning local currencies and cross border payments in the BRICS, the headline is often the same: is BRICS looking to replace the US dollar?

That’s probably too simplistic.

The New Delhi Declaration is about tangible work on interoperable payment and messaging channels and more usage of BRICS local currencies for commerce and investment, while specifically admitting that there is no one method that suits all members.

“The bigger opportunity is payment diversification.

The consequences might be massive if an Indian company can ultimately trade more efficiently with Brazil, the UAE, Indonesia or other emerging markets without every trade being tied to the same financial channels.

For corporations, cheaper and faster resolution can be more important than geopolitical slogans.

India has something that BRICS wants.

Here is where India’s situation becomes very interesting.

India is not the biggest economy in BRICS. It lacks the production scale of China or the energy resources of other Gulf countries.

But India has constructed something more precious and more valuable: population-scale digital infrastructure.

Payments, digital identification, financial inclusion, public digital platforms, and more complex technological ecosystems have given India skills that many rising nations are eager to comprehend.

This opens up avenues outside traditional trading.

India might be a provider of digital infrastructure, technology, fintech, healthtech, AI services and business platforms for the broader Global South. That opportunity is closely connected to India’s AI talent opportunity and its expanding technology ecosystem.

This is more than goods export opportunity.

It is to export systems.

The China Question Cannot Be Overlooked

There is, nevertheless, a nasty twist.

China is the biggest economic power in BRICS and is looking to increasingly direct the bloc’s technology and finance agenda. At the New Delhi conference, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for more economic cooperation and suggested a BRICS AI Open Source Zone, alongside proposals involving trade, finance and technology cooperation, as Reuters reported.

India and China are seeking to revive economic engagement after years of sour relations.

In 2025 they had a record $155.6 billion in bilateral commerce, but India’s imports from China were about $132 billion, leading to a huge trade deficit. Reuters reported that the two countries also discussed market access, supply-chain issues and the structural trade imbalance during the BRICS summit.

This presents a paradox for India.

The government seeks deeper trade and supply-chain links throughout BRICS.

It also seeks to reduce excessive strategic dependence on China.

The answer cannot be commerce alone.

India needs more balanced trade, more domestic value addition and more competitive Indian enterprises.

Expansion makes BRICS more representative – but also potentially more difficult to organise. Reuters’ analysis of BRICS has highlighted the challenges created by the differing economic and strategic interests of the expanded grouping.

The currency debate may be less important than the supply-chain battle

Perhaps the most significant economic opportunity inside BRICS has very little to do with currencies.

It’s production.

The New Delhi Declaration specifically highlights the need for more resilient and trustworthy supply chains and a bigger share of developing nations in higher-value segments of global manufacturing and industry. It also covers knowledge transfer, productive capacity and trade and investment initiatives.

This is in line with India’s own aspirations.

India seeks to progress up the value chain in sectors including electronics, medicines, engineering, renewable energy, defence, aerospace, semiconductors and sophisticated manufacturing.

That aim could find additional markets and partners in BRICS.

Rather than merely the “China plus one” mindset, India can increasingly think “India plus many”.

That means Indian firms joining supply networks that criss-cross Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America—and increasingly thinking beyond the domestic market as Indian companies expand globally.

Capital May Be Next Fight

There is another piece of the puzzle that demands more attention: capital.

Reuters claims BRICS has the New Development Bank that has funded approximately $43 billion in projects.

But the greatest opportunity may be connecting private capital across emerging markets. That question is particularly important for India, where the availability of capital for companies moving beyond the early stages remains a major challenge. India’s scale-up capital problem could become increasingly relevant as Indian businesses look beyond domestic markets.

Indian family offices, institutional investors, private equity funds and venture capital organisations are increasingly looking beyond India’s boundaries. That shift is also changing the relationship between foreign investors and Indian startups, particularly as Indian companies seek larger pools of growth capital.

Imagine an African digital business funded by India’s financial capital, a Gulf investor investing in an Indian infrastructure platform, or an Indian startup gaining clients and key investors in Southeast Asia. As Indian family offices and sophisticated investors increasingly look beyond traditional asset classes, India’s smart money could become an increasingly important source of cross-border capital.

That’s how you build economic power.

Not one summit. Through thousands of trade partnerships.

Structural problem in BRICS

But there’s no certainty that it will happen.

BRICS is not the European Union. It has members with various economic models, diverse strategic agendas and different foreign-policy goals.

China and India are rivals.

Russia’s connection to Western economy is very different.

Brazil’s priorities are not India’s.

The economies of the Gulf have their own global strategies.

Expansion makes BRICS more representative – but also potentially more difficult to organise. Reuters said the larger group has already been harder to reach consensus because of differing national interests.

That means it will be the execution that will finally define BRICS.

Will it make cross-border payments easier?

Can it make trade better?

Can they create good financial institutions?

Can it make supply chains stronger?

Can it develop tech partnerships?

Is BRICS a reason for firms to do more business?

Those questions will matter far more than declarations.

The Real India Opportunity

Perhaps India’s best bet is not to treat BRICS as a replacement for the West.

Rather, India may leverage BRICS as another economic network.

India can trade with the US and Europe, create supply chains with Asia, attract financing from the Gulf, sell technology into Africa and Latin America, and at the same time deepen partnerships across the Global South.

This is strategic flexibility.

And in a fractured world economy, flexibility is itself an economic good.

There were over 400 meetings and interactions including governments, businesses, professionals and organisations in 30 Indian cities during India’s BRICS Presidency, according to the Government of India’s BRICS summit briefing.

So the true test begins now.

India’s BRICS strategy success will finally not be assessed by the number of leaders who made it to New Delhi.

It will be judged by whether Indian companies export more, if supply chains are more diverse, whether capital flows more freely, whether technology goes further and whether developing economies have a louder voice in institutions that govern their economic prospects.

There will be no winner, whether country or bloc, in the war over the next global economic system. Whoever can construct the most useful networks of trade, capital, technology and trust will shape it.

India has the opportunity to be one of those architects, building on the broader transformation described in India’s next economic revolution.

But that’s the easy part: starting the conversation.

The true fight is in transforming BRICS into an economic boon for India.

Editor’s Note: This article is an editorial analysis of BRICS, India’s role in the grouping and the potential economic implications of its expanding cooperation. It is not investment advice or a prediction of future geopolitical outcomes.