Sam Altman India visit: PM Modi to discuss India’s first foundational AI model with OpenAI CEO after Deepseek popularity

ChatGPT creator OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman is likely to visit India on February 5, sources said on Monday, adding that the high-profile founder is expected to meet top government officials and engage in an industry fireside chat during his trip. 

S Krishnan, the Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), stated on Tuesday that the government is working to find a balance between developing the country’s first foundational artificial intelligence model using open-source frameworks and leveraging the capabilities of existing models like those from OpenAI. 

Krishnan stated that while the government is open to exploring potential collaboration with OpenAI, ChatGPT is not an open-source model. He emphasized, “Our models will have to be built on open-source foundations.” He highlighted DeepSeek as an example of a hybrid approach in AI development, explaining that it demonstrates how parts of an existing model can be integrated and built upon. However, he also recognized a major challenge: the uncertainty about the training data used in the original models. 

He expressed concerns about data privacy, stating, “If you use DeepSeek as an app, it's likely that the data travels to their servers.” To address this issue, Krishnan proposed a solution: “We can pick up DeepSeek, host it on Indian servers, so that data stays here in India.” 

This approach would help keep sensitive data within the country while still taking advantage of advanced AI technologies. As talks with OpenAI approach, the primary focus is on developing a strong AI ecosystem in India, ensuring a balance between innovation and the crucial need for data security and sovereignty.  

Altman's visit, his second one in two years, comes at an interesting juncture when OpenAI's (and indeed the western world's) dominance in artificial intelligence has abruptly been challenged by Chinese upstart Deepseek, which turned heads with its low-cost AI model R1, built at less than USD 6 million and guzzling a fraction of compute power when compared to popular models like ChatGPT. 

Deepseek overtook ChatGPT as the top-ranked free app on Apple's Appstore, as the US tech industry -- that has long-justified injecting billions of dollars into AI investments -- watched in sheer disbelief.