India Should Be A Leader In AI Race: OpenAI CEO

AI models are still not cheap, but they are doable. India should be a leader there, of course. I am amazed at how the country has embraced the technology and built an entire ecosystem around it - Sam Altman, Co-founder & CEO, OpenAI

India is all set to launch its own safe and secure indigenous AI model at an affordable cost ofless than Rs100/hr ($1.16) after 40% govt subsidy, while global models costing $2.5-3/hr - Ashwini Vaishnaw, IT Minister

New Delhi: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday said that the country is important for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and OpenAI, and added that India - with its full stack model - should be among the leaders of the AI revolution.

Altman, during a fireside chat with IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, said OpenAI tripled its users here in the last year. He gave a ringing endorsement to India’s efforts in building on AI at all levels of the stack, chips, models and ‘the incredible applications’.

“India is an incredibly important market for AI in general, for open AI in particular, it’s our second biggest market. Tripled users here in the last year, but mostly seeing what people in India are building with AI at all levels of the stack, chips, models, you know, all of the incredible applications,” Altman, who is on a whirlwind India tour, said.

Altman advocated India to go all out in its AI play. “I think India should be one of the leaders of the AI revolution. But it’s really quite amazing to see what the country has done... embraced the technology and is building the entire stack of things on top of it,” Altman said. Asked about his advice, as India looks to have a global voice in AI and take a leadership position, Altman said “it seems to me like it’s working”.

Altman’s bullish view on India’s AI efforts is a telling statement given that he had faced a backlash in 2023, when he had expressed doubts about powerful AI models emerging outside of the United State. During the fireside chat on Wednesday, IT Minister Vaishnaw said that innovation can come from anywhere in the world “why shouldn’t it come from India”.

Altman’s visit, his second one in two years, comes at an interesting juncture when OpenAI’s (and indeed the western world’s) dominance in artificial intelligence has abruptly been challenged by Chinese upstart DeepSeek, which turned heads with its low-cost AI model R1, built at less than $6 million and guzzling a fraction of compute power when compared to popular models like ChatGPT. Deepseek overtook ChatGPT as the top-ranked free app on Apple’s App Store, as the US tech industry - that has long-justified injecting billions of dollars into AI investments - watched in sheer disbelief last week.