
OpenAI Co-founder and CEO Sam Altman highlighted India as a key market for artificial intelligence (AI), calling it the second biggest market for OpenAI globally, on Wednesday, February 5 during an event.
The event took place in the presence of Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Railways, Electronics, and Information Technology (IT).
It may be recalled that Altman just announced a massive 500 billion dollar project called Stargate to build new AI infrastructure in the United States (US) with SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX over the next four years.
He further said that India should be a leader in the AI model race. Although he added that current models are expensive, they are achievable with the right investments.
Altman clarified that his earlier remark regarding India's ability to create large language models (LLMs) was taken out of context.
India's vision
Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s Union Minister for Railways, Electronics, and IT, shared that young entrepreneurs are keen to innovate in the field of AI and are also looking for ways to reduce costs and achieve greater technological advancement, similar to the Chandrayaan mission.
The Indian government also plans to launch its own AI model within six months. This model is expected to be affordable and will help India establish itself as a leader in ethical AI solutions, Vaishnaw announced.
The AI model will be powered by a high-end computing facility with around 10,000 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), with 8,693 GPUs to be added soon. Initially, the AI model will be available for researchers, developers, and students, said the minister.
The Indian AI model will cost less than Rs 100 per GPU per hour, with the government subsidising 40% of the cost.
This is in stark contrast to global AI models, which can cost 2.5 to 3 dollars per hour. It is about nine times what the open-source model China's DeepSeek offers and about two-thirds of what ChatGPT offers, said the union minister.