India’s AI opportunity is amazing: Sam Altman

At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Sam Altman described India as a rapidly growing AI market with over 100 million weekly ChatGPT users. He announced the ‘OpenAI for India’ initiative in partnership with Tata Group to build local AI infrastructure and skills

 New Delhi: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Thursday said India is witnessing extraordinary growth in Artificial Intelligence adoption, describing the country as one of the company’s fastest-growing markets globally.

Speaking to media on the sideline of ‘India AI Impact Summit 2026’ in the national capital, Altman said India’s AI opportunity is amazing. It’s great to be here. “This is one of our fastest growing markets in the world. Maybe it’s the fastest at this point. It’s certainly the fastest for Codex,” Altman told reporters.

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Altman highlighted that India is now home to over 100 million weekly users of ChatGPT, ranging from students and teachers to developers and entrepreneurs.

“There’s more than 100 million people. They use ChatGPT every week,” he mentioned. He noted that the scale and speed of adoption in the country underline its growing importance in the global AI ecosystem.

Earlier in the day, Altman announced the launch of the ‘OpenAI for India’ initiative at the summit. The initiative aims to build infrastructure, strengthen skills and create local partnerships to develop AI solutions tailored for the country. He said the goal is to build “AI with India, for India, and in India.”

Under this initiative, OpenAI will collaborate with leading Indian partners, starting with the Tata Group, to expand access to AI and unlock its economic and social benefits. The partnership will focus on building sovereign AI capabilities, accelerating enterprise adoption, investing in workforce upskilling and supporting India’s growing AI ecosystem.

As part of OpenAI’s global Stargate initiative, the company and Tata Group will work together to develop AI-ready data centre capacity in India. OpenAI will become the first customer of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) HyperVault data centre business, starting with 100 megawatts of capacity and potentially scaling up to 1 gigawatt over time.

Altman said India’s strong tech talent base, optimism around AI and government support position the country well to shape the future of democratic AI adoption at scale.

The planned infrastructure will allow OpenAI’s advanced models to operate securely within India, ensuring lower latency and compliance with data residency and security requirements.