Just when an artificial intelligence (AI) war is raging, Microsoft-backed OpenAI's chief Sam Altman is visiting India. Days after China's low-cost DeepSeek artificial intelligence tool rattled the tech world a week ago by surpassing ChatGPT in popularity on Apple's App Store in the US, OpenAI launched o3-mini, the most cost-efficient of its reasoning agents, which “advances the boundaries of what small models can achieve” as well as a 'Deep Research' tool with which ChatGPT can now carry out com ..

Altman's visit comes at a time when India is upping the ante on its AI play with the launch of the IndiaAI Mission. “Altman's visit is to push OpenAI's case for becoming a part of India's national AI agenda. India was shown to be a laggard in the AI race after China's DeepSeek shook the world with its low-cost model while OpenAI had to contend with a much smaller rival. In India, OpenAI is facing a copyright lawsuit from a group of book publishers and media companies.

Union minister for electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw today met Altman to discuss India's strategy for developing a comprehensive AI ecosystem. Following the meeting, Vaishnaw posted on X: "Had super cool discussion with Sam Altman on our strategy of creating the entire AI stack - GPUs, model, and apps. Willing to collaborate with India on all three."

During the discussion, Vaishnaw emphasised India's ability to develop cost-effective AI models, drawing comparisons to the country's l..