OpenAI's Altman meets with India IT minister to discuss country's AI plans

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met India's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to discuss creating a low-cost AI ecosystem. Vaishnaw highlighted India's strategy for an AI stack, and OpenAI expressed willingness to collaborate amid legal challenges in India, its second-largest market.

Sam Altman met with India's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to discuss a low-cost AI ecosystem. (AFP)

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman met with India's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday and discussed India's plan of creating a low-cost AI ecosystem.

Vaishnaw said in a post on X that he had a "super cool discussion" with Altman on India's "strategy of creating the entire AI stack - GPUs, model, and apps" and that OpenAI was willing to collaborate on all three.

Altman's India visit, his first since 2023, comes at a time when the company faces legal challenges in the country, its second-largest market by number of users.

Vaishnaw last week praised Chinese startup DeepSeek for shaking up the sector with its low-cost AI assistant, likening its frugal approach to his government's efforts to build a localised AI model.

"Our country sent a mission to the moon at a friction 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?" Vaishnaw said in a video of part of the discussion with Altman that he posted.

Altman's trip to India follows visits to Japan and Korea. He clinched deals with SoftBank Group and Kakao . In Seoul, he also held talks with SoftBank and Samsung about the Stargate AI data centre project that has been backed by U.S. President Donald Trump.