Weeks after the US curtailed access to Anthropic's AI models worldwide, including in India, Washington has assured New Delhi that technology access, once granted, will not be abruptly withdrawn. The commitment was conveyed by US officials during talks with India, according to IT Secretary S. Krishnan.
Krishnan, speaking to reporters after a bilateral meeting with US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg on Wednesday, said Washington had explained the rationale behind its decision to suspend Anthropic's Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models globally, while separately assuring India that access already extended to trusted partners would remain unaffected.
Anthropic had expanded its restricted Project Glasswing programme to India in early June, giving Indian organisations access to the Mythos Preview model for cybersecurity testing, making India one of the earliest countries to receive access. Days later, Washington's export control directive required Anthropic to disable both Mythos 5 and the public-facing Fable 5 for users worldwide, including in India, after the US government said it had learned of a possible "jailbreak" of the model.
Anthropic quickly complied with the US government order, saying it could not reliably distinguish foreign nationals from other users in order to comply with the directive in any other way.
The Krishnan-Helberg meeting took place on the sidelines of the second Pax Silica Summit, a US-led initiative launched in December to align allies and partners on semiconductors, critical minerals and AI supply chains. The initiative was explicitly conceived by Washington as a counterweight to China's dominance in these strategic supply chains.
India joined the framework in February on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. Krishnan is representing the country at this week's summit, which includes discussions on AI infrastructure, security and critical minerals.
"We sought an understanding of how exactly the US is looking at this particular aspect and what their concerns are and how, in the future, this could be a reliable source of technology, because if it is something which is to be used and made available, we can't have abrupt cutoffs. We were given an understanding of how the US looks at this particular issue and how, going forward, they will ensure that for trusted partners, access will not be an issue," said Krishnan on the sidelines of the second Pax Silica conference in the US.