Vaishnaw noted that Altman was open to collaborating with India in its efforts to build cost-effective AI solutions. The minister highlighted India’s goal of creating an entire AI ecosystem, including GPUs, models, and applications.
Altman’s visit comes days after the finance ministry reportedly directed its officers not to download or use AI tools and apps such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek on office computers and devices, citing confidentiality risks to data and documents.
“Had super cool discussion with Sam Altman on our strategy of creating the entire AI stack – GPUs, model, and apps. Willing to collaborate with India on all three,” Vaishnaw added.
According to a PTI report, Vaishnaw emphasised that India’s entrepreneurial talent is really focused on getting the next level of innovation ‘that will reduce the cost’, and hoped to raise the bar on cost-efficient large language models (LLMs).
During the discussion, Vaishnaw highlighted India’s ability to develop cost-effective AI models, drawing comparisons to the country’s low-cost space missions. “Our country sent a mission to the moon at a fraction of the cost that many other countries did right, why can’t we do a model that will be a fraction of the cost that many others do? So, yes, innovation will bring that cost down within application in healthcare and education, in agriculture, in weather forecasting, in disaster management, transport, multiple different things we are working on.” Vaishnaw said in a video of part of the discussion with Altman, which he posted on X.
India’s Startup Community
He also encouraged the startup community to contribute innovative AI solutions and announced plans for an open competition. “I request the entire startup community to come up with unique solutions and will be open. We’re soon starting a kind of open competition for it, open empanelment, competition type of thing so that would be huge, so many problems can be solved, why dont use this latest technology that we have or solving these problems right? You guys are good about that,” Vaishnaw added.
Vaishnaw’s comments come a few weeks after he announced that, as part of the Rs 10,738 crore India AI Mission, India would develop multiple foundational models, set to be launched in the coming months.
Also Read: OpenAI’s ChatGPT Service Only Disseminates Public Information: Report
Altman’s Views on AI Costs
According to the report, Altman, in a closed-door meeting with Indian tech developers, reaffirmed India’s growing significance for OpenAI. Startup founders expressed that OpenAI would need to cut down on its pricing to make it big in India.
“India is an incredibly important market for AI in general, for OpenAI in particular, it’s our second biggest market. Tripled users here in the last year, but mostly seeing what people in India are building with AI at all levels of the stack, chips, models, you know, all of the incredible applications,” Altman reportedly said.
“I think India should be one of the leaders of the AI revolution. But it’s really quite amazing to see what the country has done… embraced the technology and is building the entire stack of things on top of it,” Altman added, according to reports.
“We have learnt a lot about these small models and reasoning models. It is still not cheap… it is still expensive to train them, but it is doable. I think that is going to lead to an explosion of really great creativity. India should be a leader there, of course,” Altman said, according to the report.
He noted that the cost of developing model models in AI is still not cheap but there has been a lot of progress in AI that will require less hardware and the rest of it can be used for other purposes.
“The cost for a given unit of intelligence, one year later, seems to fall by about 10x,” Altman reportedly said.
On AI Curing Cancer
“Artificial intelligence may not be ready to cure cancer on its own, but it can significantly enhance the efficiency of researchers working on complex problems,” Altman said, according to a Moneycontrol report.
During a fireside chat with India’s IT Minister, Altman explained, “This (Deep Research) can help someone review the existing literature and find some connections. But this is not an innovator yet.”
“I don’t think we’re yet at the technological level where any of us should expect these models to go cure cancer on their own. We will get there, I think. Yes. But for now, I think this can help researchers be much more productive in what they do,” Altman reportedly said.
“You can double the efficiency of every scientist on Earth with the tool we have today, which I believe might be possible,” he added.
“If you are a scientist trying to cure some disease, deep research is surely not going to go cure that disease on its own. But if you can farm out the tasks that took you a lot of time but were lower value, you learn to work that way, maybe you can be twice as efficient,” Altman reportedly said.
Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl shared key takeaways from the closed-door discussion on X.
“Acknowledgment that pricing is high currently and that for mass scale adoption, it would need to come down dramatically. Possibly more updates on that in the future,” Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl said in a tweet on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
“As ChatGPT becomes an entry point for information research for users, the intention is to not charge for linking out of ChatGPT (unlike Google), as they believe it can impact the perception of trust in the results. Interesting implication for intent-based ads businesses like Google and those who spend a lot on them,” Bahl added.
Also Read: India to Promote Cheap Data Rates, 5G Expansion to Attract Global Investments: Report
Altman’s visit to India comes as OpenAI faces legal challenges over its alleged use of copyrighted content from media organisations. His visit follows trips to Japan and Korea, where he announced deals with SoftBank Group and Kakao. In Seoul, Altman held discussions with SoftBank and Samsung regarding the Stargate AI data center project, backed by US President Donald Trump. On Monday, Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group and OpenAI announced a 50:50 partnership to establish SB OpenAI Japan.
India’s Foundational AI Model
Last week, India outlined its global AI ambitions, unveiling plans to develop its own ‘foundational model’ to compete with ChatGPT, DeepSeek R1, and others. The initiative includes building an affordable common computing facility powered by 18,693 GPUs to support startups and researchers in developing AI applications and new algorithms.
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that India is all set to launch its own secure, indigenous AI model at an affordable cost. Compared to global models that cost USD 2.5–USD 3 per hour of usage, India’s AI model will cost less than Rs 100 per hour (USD 1.16 per hour) after a 40 percent government subsidy.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to co-host an artificial intelligence summit in France from February 10-11, where Altman is expected to attend.
Also Read: India’s Digital Economy to Outpace Agriculture, Manufacturing by 2030: Govt Report
Altman on Deepseek and AGI
In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Altman had called Deepseek’s R1 an ‘impressive model’ given its funding.
On January 28, 2025, Altman posted on X, “DeepSeek’s R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price. We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! we will pull up some releases. but mostly we are excited to continue to execute on our research roadmap and believe more compute is more important now than ever before to succeed at our mission. The world is going to want to use a LOT of ai, and really be quite amazed by the next-gen models coming. Look forward to bringing you all AGI and beyond.”
Earlier in January, Altman had asked Twitter to chill and said that OpenAI hasn’t built AGI yet. “Twitter hype is out of control again. We are not gonna deploy AGI next month, nor have we built it. We have some very cool stuff for you but pls chill and cut your expectations 100x!” Altman postd on January 20, 2025.
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