OpenAI is going big in India — here's everything the ChatGPT developer is up to

OpenAI is rapidly expanding its beingness successful India — 1 of the cardinal markets for its flagship ChatGPT product.

India is an appealing destination for U.S. tech giants, with companies ranging from Google to Meta betting connected its immense — and young — colonisation implicit caller years.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman visited the state successful February this twelvemonth and met with the country's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to sermon collaboration. During the visit, Altman said India was OpenAI's second-largest marketplace by fig of users.

He has subsequently said that AI adoption successful India is "amazing to watch."

"We emotion to spot the detonation of creativity--india is outpacing the world," helium said connected X earlier this year.

India is 1 of ChatGPT's fastest-growing markets globally, Nick Patience, signifier pb for AI astatine tech probe and investigation steadfast Futurum Group, told CNBC. "OpenAI's India absorption is simply a strategical determination to summation a competitory edge," helium added.

Here's a rundown of however OpenAI is expanding successful India.

ChatGPT, OpenAI's halfway product, has seen beardown maturation successful India. The app was downloaded 10.2 cardinal times successful India successful August, a immense leap from the 2.5 cardinal downloads seen during the aforesaid period past year, according to analytics steadfast Appfigures.

Since its launch, ChatGPT has 111 cardinal downloads successful India, up of its 80 cardinal downloads successful the U.S, Appfigures information shows.

Downloads bash not needfully adjacent regular oregon monthly users, but the figures emphasise OpenAI's maturation trajectory successful the country.

The download numbers are besides acold up of rivals, including Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude. The closest challenger was Perplexity, Appfigures said, which had 6.4 cardinal downloads successful August.

User spending connected ChatGPT has been increasing. To date, Indian users person spent $21.3 cardinal connected ChatGPT, Appfigures information shows. In comparison, U.S. users person spent $784 million.

That underlines the information that portion the fig of users successful India is huge, it remains a price-sensitive market.

To code this, OpenAI successful August launched ChatGPT Go, a low-cost 399-rupees-($4.53)-a-month program for its AI app.

According to Bloomberg, OpenAI is scouting a determination successful India for a information halfway with astatine slightest 1-gigawatt capacity. The installation volition beryllium portion of OpenAI's Stargate-branded infrastructure push, Bloomberg said this week, though CNBC was incapable to verify the report.

The ChatGPT developer said past period that it would unfastened a section bureau successful the marketplace and is presently advertizing 3 income roles successful India.

It besides announced past period an acquisition programme successful India that volition see backing for probe and supply fractional a cardinal ChatGPT licenses for educators and students crossed the country.

While India doesn't person a home-grown artificial quality institution arsenic large arsenic OpenAI, determination are immoderate challengers successful the signifier of home startups, including Sarvam AI and Krutrim, and different American tech giants similar Google and Meta.

Continued geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and India implicit trade, however, person the imaginable to origin complications if there's immoderate backlash from New Delhi against American tech firms.

OpenAI is besides locked successful a ineligible conflict with Asian News International successful India, which has accused the ChatGPT developer of utilizing copyrighted worldly illegally. It's a closely-watched lawsuit successful the state for however copyright laws use successful the AI era.

"OpenAI's occurrence successful India is not guaranteed and depends heavy connected its quality to navigate these ineligible and governmental hurdles," Futurum Group's Patience said.

"While the Indian marketplace is vast, its diverseness successful languages and idiosyncratic needs presents challenges. OpenAI's quality to present a genuinely localized merchandise and its semipermanent interaction connected India's AI endowment stay uncertain."