India Leads the AI Charge, Says OpenAI's Sam Altman

In a wave of public admiration, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has praised India for its rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and a flourishing culture of creativity that is setting new global benchmarks. Altman’s statements, delivered across a series of posts on social media platform X, come at a time when India is emerging as a vital force in the global AI landscape. “What’s happening with AI adoption in India right now is amazing to watch,” Altman wrote on April 2, 2025. “We love to see the explosion of creativity—India is outpacing the world.”

Altman’s appreciation of India’s AI momentum sparked both applause and curiosity on social media. Users responded with surprise, noting the stark contrast between his current praise and past remarks. One user wrote, “Why sudden change of heart? Would you please enlighten us on what changed from ‘Totally Hopeless’ in 2023 to ‘explosion of creativity’ in 2025?”

Altman, who visited India in February, used that opportunity to clarify previous comments made during his 2023 visit—where he had labeled India’s ability to develop foundational AI models as “totally hopeless.” He later explained that his statement had been taken out of context and was specifically about the steep costs and challenges of building foundational models at scale.

Reflecting his revised outlook, Altman emphasized India’s progress in AI and its growing importance to OpenAI. “India is a very important market for AI. It is our second biggest market,” he said. “Models are still not cheap, but they are doable. India should be a leader there of course.”

While speaking alongside Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw during his February visit to New Delhi, Altman highlighted how OpenAI had tripled its user base in India over the past year. “We’re seeing incredible development across all levels—chips, models, and a wide range of applications. I think India should be doing everything. I think India should be one of the leaders of the AI revolution,” he asserted.

Altman also addressed concerns around AI development costs, particularly in light of competition from platforms like China’s DeepSeek. He noted that while AI model training is still expensive, progress in distillation and reasoning models is significantly reducing the hardware burden. “The cost for a given unit of intelligence, one year later, seems to fall by about 10x,” he projected.

However, the surge in popularity for OpenAI’s latest tools—including the new image generation features in ChatGPT—has led to capacity challenges. Altman cautioned that users might experience delays and temporary service slowdowns. “We are getting things under control, but you should expect new releases from OpenAI to be delayed, stuff to break, and for service to sometimes be slow as we deal with capacity challenges,” he explained.

Altman’s comments and gestures signify a major pivot in how global AI leaders view India—not just as a market, but as a hub of innovation, talent, and transformative potential. With surging demand, a growing user base, and global recognition, India appears well-positioned to shape the next chapter of the AI revolution.