India can become a global powerhouse and is a crucial market for AI: Sam Altman
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will travel to India for the second time on 5th Feb’25. Altman will attend a business conference in New Delhi and meet with government officials on this trip. Altman’s arrival to handle several significant challenges for OpenAI puts the company in a precarious position.
Because OpenAI trained its AI systems using ANI’s content without the required authorization or payment, the American company is currently in legal hot water with the Indian news organization. OpenAI denied Indian court jurisdiction in this case and stated that their data comes from publicly available sources.
Sam Altman stated, “India is the company’s second-largest worldwide market and a crucial market for artificial intelligence (AI) as the country starts an exciting AI journey.”
At an event, the proprietor of ChatGPT AI models was speaking in front of Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union Minister for Railways, Electronics, and IT.
India should dominate the AI model race, according to Altman, who recently launched a large $500 billion project called “Stargate” that will construct new AI infrastructure in the US over the next four years in collaboration with SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX.
India is a crucial market for artificial intelligence. Our second-largest market is this one. Although models are still expensive, they are feasible. Naturally, India ought to be a leader there,” he said the audience.
Additionally, he explained that his previous statement regarding India’s capacity to create large language models (LLMs) was “taken out of context.”
Young entrepreneurs in the nation are reportedly very interested in obtaining the next level of innovation that will lower costs, along the lines of “we did the Chandrayaan mission, why can’t we do the same in the LLM space,” said Minister Vaishnaw.
According to the minister’s announcement last month, the nation is expected to introduce its own safe and secure domestic AI model at a reasonable price within six months.
In the future, India will become a more dependable technical powerhouse with ethical AI solutions thanks to the Indian AI model. The IndiaAI goal is now closer to adapting native AI solutions for the domestic environment using Indian languages, supported by a state-of-the-art shared computing infrastructure.
The Union Minister expressed anticipation that the Indian AI model will likely be available within six months, considering the rate at which scientists, researchers, developers, and programmers are working on several foundational models in this area.
The AI model starts with a computing capacity of about 10,000 GPUs. The final 8693 GPUs will be added shortly. Researchers, students, and developers will initially gain a lot from it. After subsidizing 40% of the cost, the government has chosen to make it available to people for less than Rs 100 per GPU.
After a 40% government subsidy, India’s AI model will cost less than Rs 100 per hour, compared to international models that cost between $2.5 and $3 per hour to use. It is around two-thirds of what ChatGPT has and nine times more than China’s DeepSeek, an open-source model.
Altman encounters a number of challenges throughout his tour. The legal dispute with ANI and the rivalry from DeepSeek in the market provide two major challenges for OpenAI.
Because his prior skepticism over the construction of powerful AI models outside of the United States continues to affect his interactions with Indian stakeholders, Altman has encountered further difficulties.