ChatGPT maker OpenAI has partnered with IndiaAI Mission under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India, to launch its first international education platform, OpenAI Academy India. The initiative, launched last Thursday, marks the first international expansion of OpenAI’s online learning platform aimed at broadening access to artificial intelligence (AI) learning for diverse learner groups across the country. India has the second-largest user base for ChatGPT, according to previous reports.
As part of the collaboration, OpenAI and IndiaAI signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that outlines the shared objectives of fostering AI literacy and innovation. The initiative, formalised through an MoU with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), will provide AI education to students, educators, civil servants, non-profit leaders, developers, and small business owners.
Bilingual Courses and Offline Integration
The platform blends online and offline learning and will initially offer courses in English and Hindi, with plans to incorporate additional regional languages in the near future. OpenAI will also integrate its learning modules with the IndiaAI Mission’s FutureSkills platform, alongside contributing educational content to iGOT Karmayogi, a capacity-building platform for government officials, according to a PTI [1] report.
OpenAI said it now supports 3 million paying business users of ChatGPT, up from 2 million in February, according to a Business Standard [2] report.
“…launch OpenAI Academy in partnership with the IndiaAI Future Skills Mission, a national digital skilling initiative led by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). This event marks the formal start of OpenAI’s education and AI literacy programs in India. Together with IndiaAI, we’re working to equip the next generation of students, developers, and mission-driven organisations with the tools and training they need to build responsibly with AI,” OpenAI Academy shared in a blog post on its website for the event on June 5, 2025.
“The (AI) tools and the latest development frameworks should be available to all the startups and researchers so that new apps can be developed, new solutions can be created at population scale,” Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a virtual message at the launch in New Delhi, according to an Economic Times [3] report.
The mission, which is also supporting the building of Indian foundational models, is receiving interest to do so from the likes of Essential AI cofounder Ashish Vaswani and Two AI founder Pranav Mistry. The takeaway is that the IndiaAI Mission is attracting talent and entrepreneurs back to India, an official was quoted as saying in the third report.
India Emerges as a Global AI Powerhouse
India is becoming a global artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse with the second-highest number of users of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a thriving community of developers that are among the top 10 countries globally building on OpenAI’s application programming interfaces (APIs), the company’s Chief Strategy Officer, Jason Kwon, said, according to the second report.
Kwon, who was in India last Thursday as part of his global tour, reportedly said India understands that maximising AI’s benefits requires significant investments in core infrastructure and cultivating AI talent. “By leading in these areas and empowering people to harness frontier intelligence, India can accelerate that growth and discover scientific breakthroughs and develop solutions to some of society’s hardest challenges,” Kwon was quoted as saying in the third report.
India’s vast and growing pool of AI talent, vibrant entrepreneurial spirit and strong government support to expand critical infrastructure mean the country is poised to succeed in all areas of the AI stack, he reportedly added.
“As demand for AI professionals is expected to reach 1 million by 2026, there’s a significant opportunity and a need to expand AI skills, development, and make sure people from every part of India can participate and benefit,” Kwon was quoted as saying in the third report.
Through the partnership, OpenAI will also provide up to USD 100,000 worth of API credits to 50 IndiaAI Mission-approved fellows and startups. Additionally, the Academy will organise a series of hackathons across seven Indian states, engaging around 25,000 students. Winners will be offered the opportunity to attend OpenAI’s global Dev Day event. The Academy will also contribute to one of IndiaAI’s most ambitious goals: training one million teachers in the application of generative AI technologies in education.
“I am sure with this partnership, we will be able to strengthen our educational ecosystem, we will be able to empower all our students, we will be able to support our entrepreneurs and our engineers in building state-of-the-art AI applications and models,” IndiaAI Mission Chief Executive Abhishek Singh was quoted as saying in the third report.
OpenAI’s New Beta Tools
The company announced the launch of the beta version of Connectors, a tool that can help enterprises find granular data from their third-party tools without leaving ChatGPT.
“Additionally, deep research connectors (beta) are now available with HubSpot, Linear, as well as many popular Microsoft and Google tools. These build on Deep Research, an agent that conducts multi-step research for complex tasks, by gathering, synthesizing, and presenting information from third-party tools and the web,” the company said in a press note, as mentioned in the second report.
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