India second largest marketplace for OpenAI says its CEO Sam Altman
Printed Date – 5 February 2025, 09:30 PM
New Delhi: Two years after his dismissive stance on India’s AI potential raised eyebrows right here, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday gave a ringing endorsement to Artificial Intelligence momentum in the nation — and billed India as an vital market not only for the new-age know-how itself however for the ChatGPT creator as properly.
In New Delhi on Wednesday, Altman — whereas sharing dais with Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw — mentioned India is the second largest marketplace for the corporate and that Open AI had tripled its customers right here in the final yr.
He made probably the most of his whirlwind tour to India, assembly business captains together with Paytm Founder-CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Snapdeal Co-Founder Kunal Bahl, Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal, Ixigo Group CEO Aloke Bajpai, Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, Peak XV Managing Director Rajan Anandan, and Accomplice at main enterprise capital agency Accel Prayank Swaroop.
Altman throughout his first go to to India in June 2023 had known as India’s capacity to develop a foundational mannequin just like OpenAI’s ChatGPT “completely hopeless” and a few days later had clarified that his level was concerning the issue of competing with established AI giants on cost-efficient foundational fashions.
Altman’s go to comes days after the finance ministry directed its officers to not obtain or use AI instruments and apps such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek in workplace computer systems and gadgets, saying they pose confidentiality dangers to knowledge and paperwork.
In response to a query on his view on growth of low-cost foundational fashions, Altman mentioned that’s a reference to a remark he made in India a few years in the past.
“That was a very particular time when there was a sure scaling factor. I nonetheless suppose that to remain on that frontier of pre-training fashions is pricey. We at the moment are in a world the place we made unbelievable progress with distillation.
“These reasoning fashions in specific, it’s not low-cost. It’s nonetheless costly to coach them, nevertheless it’s doable. I feel that’s going to result in an explosion of actually nice creativity and India must be a chief there,” he mentioned.
Many imagine that China’s DeepSeek AI platform developed with USD 6 million funding relies on “distillation” of foundational AI fashions however there is no such thing as a clear proof obtainable.
Altman mentioned India is an extremely vital marketplace for AI in common, for OpenAI in specific.