NEW DELHI: Two years after dismissing India’s AI potential as ‘hopeless’, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday acknowledged that India has grown to become the second biggest market for his firm’s flagship product, the ChatGPT, after the US.
Altman, while discussing India’s progress in AI alongside Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw at an event in Delhi, said Open AI has tripled its users in India in the past year.
Praising India’s rapid optimisation of the new technology, he said: “The innovation that’s happening, what people are building [in India], it’s really incredible. We’re excited to do much, much more here, and I think it’s (the Indian AI program) a great plan.”
During his earlier visit to India in June 2023, Altman had termed the country’s ability to develop a foundational model similar to ChatGPT “totally hopeless”, suggesting that India would be better off without trying to create its own model. He later claimed his words were taken out of context.
Altman now says training AI models is still expensive but it is becoming increasingly feasible, so India can take the lead in AI development.
His shift in tone comes in the wake of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek creating a foundational model at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI’s offerings.
The rise of DeepSeek has put pressure on OpenAI and other Western firms to lower prices to remain competitive.
Finance Ministry asks staff not to use AI apps
The finance ministry has directed its officers not to use AI tools/apps such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek in office devices or computers, saying they pose confidentiality risks to data and documents.