BRICS is an intergovernmental grouping of major emerging economies rather than a treaty organisation: it has no charter, no permanent secretariat and no headquarters, and its chairship rotates annually among members, with the chair hosting that year's summit. Its most concrete institutional output is the New Development Bank, set up in 2014 and headquartered in Shanghai, which lends for infrastructure and sustainable development and has since admitted members beyond the original five. Summit agendas typically run across trade and finance, energy, digital cooperation, food and health security, and reform of global governance institutions. India has hosted BRICS summits before, and the 2026 edition also carries the weight of the grouping's twentieth year and of a membership that is now considerably larger and more heterogeneous than the original five.