OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made a sensational announcement on Twitter this week, revealing plans for a six-country tour, including India. True to his word, Altman arrived in India and undertook various activities during his stay. At an event hosted by the Economic Times, Altman was asked a thought-provoking question by Rajan Anandan, a former vice president of Google in India and Southeast Asia and now a venture capitalist. Anandan asked about India’s potential to develop artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and asked for Altman’s insights on where Indian startups should focus to create something significant in the AI space.
Mr. Altman answered bluntly, explaining the dynamics in action. He acknowledged India’s vibrant ecosystem, but expressed his view that it would be difficult for Indian companies to compete with OpenAI on training foundation models. Despite voicing his doubts, Altman encouraged Indian entrepreneurs to try anyway.
“As for how this works, I’m going to tell you all, it’s totally hopeless to compete with us on a basic model of training that you shouldn’t try, it’s your job to try anyway. And I believe in both, I think, ‘It’s pretty hopeless,’ Altman said.
CP Gurnani, managing director and CEO of Tech Mahindra, immediately shared Altman’s response on Twitter, expressing acceptance of the challenges presented. Mr. Gournani conveyed his determination to prove Mr. Altman wrong. “OpenAI founder Sam Altman said it was pretty hopeless for an Indian company to try to compete with an Indian company. Dear @sir, from one CEO to another. Challenge accepted.” tweeted.
“At Tech Mahindra, we started working on generative AI in 2015-2016 with one of the first IPs created in a media domain called Storicool. Since then, we have launched a suite of AI products to help companies on their digital acceleration journey, and we also announced that a chatbot developed by Makers Lab was launched in 2016 ( We were also one of the first IT services companies to rank among the 51st most trusted chatbots (in the age of chatbots),” Gournani told Business Today.
In addition, Gurnani highlighted Tech Mahindra’s amplifAI0->∞ suite of AI products. It offers organizations tailor-made, innovative and agile solutions to enable next-level growth. The suite includes his Generative AI studio, which will enable companies to more efficiently generate high-quality content output. This comprehensive studio covers his six aspects of content generation (code, documents/text, images, video, audio and data), giving enterprises a centralized location to explore the possibilities of generative AI. provide a platform.
Anandan, meanwhile, chose to remain optimistic, undeterred by Altman’s initial skepticism. On Twitter, he thanked Sam Altman for his response and emphasized that Indian entrepreneurs have a fortitude that should never be underestimated. “Sam Altman, thank you for the clear answer. Like you said, ‘Desperate, but we’ll try anyway.’ 5000 years of Indian entrepreneurship never underestimate Indian entrepreneurs. It shows what you shouldn’t do. We will try,” he tweeted.
Altman also had the opportunity to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit. Altman said he took the opportunity to inquire about the introduction of ChatGPT in India, further highlighting the interest and relevance of AI in the country.
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