Индия на пути к технологическому перевороту в области искусственного интеллекта India on the Path to a Technological Revolution in Artificial Intelligence

Sam Altman holds an optimistic view about India. He stated that the implementation of AI in the country is «unmatched globally,» as reported by The Economist.

India ranks as OpenAI’s second-largest market by user count and could soon take the lead. In August, the company introduced a local subscription plan at the lowest rate of $4.6 per month, while the most affordable option elsewhere costs $20.

Later in 2025, the company plans to open an office in New Delhi, and Altman intends to visit India at the end of September. During his visit, he is expected to present a proposal for establishing a data center in the country.

Other tech giants are also eyeing the Indian market:

This «competition» offers Indian consumers access to cutting-edge solutions at a low cost. For AI startups, the benefits lie in reaching hundreds of millions of users and securing valuable data streams generated by them.

The opportunities are immense. India boasts around 900 million internet users, second only to China. Unlike the latter, however, India remains open to American tech firms.

Google’s Android powers over 90% of smartphones in the country. Meta-owned WhatsApp has more than 500 million active users. Additionally, the Indian e-commerce scene is dominated by American giants: Amazon and Flipkart (Walmart).

However, AI startups may find it challenging to yield substantial profits from this market. Most tech firms offer lower local rates. For instance, Netflix subscriptions in India are priced at just $1.69 per month, compared to $7.99 in the US.

While this may not pose a significant challenge for low-cost cloud services, executing AI requests can be expensive. Processing data for a typical user costs about $0.07 per million tokens, with a single question potentially consuming hundreds or thousands of tokens. These costs remain consistent whether in Bangalore or Silicon Valley.

Requests to ChatGPT utilize approximately ten times more computing power compared to Google. Generating a single image with AI requires an amount of electricity equivalent to fully charging a smartphone.

In addition to energy, data centers consume substantial amounts of water for cooling purposes — requiring 500 milliliters for every 5-50 queries to ChatGPT.

Dmitry Sheveilenko, Chief Commercial Officer at Perplexity, acknowledged that providing the service for free for a year is costly, but the company has time to «establish itself» and convert users into paying customers.

He noted that India shows one of the highest engagement levels among the countries where Perplexity has conducted tests. Within five years, it is expected to become an «attractive subscription market.»

Subscriptions are not the sole incentive. India’s internet user base is vast, varied, and chaotic, encompassing individuals from numerous linguistic groups. This makes it an ideal «testing ground» for new products and observing user behavior on a large scale.

Companies have begun to notice that Indian users prefer conversing with AI models rather than typing queries. This trend likely stems from widespread illiteracy — many are unable to read and write, according to The Economist.

AI startups have primarily exhausted significant public datasets available for training and enhancing models. As a result, Indian users have become a valuable new source of information.

A robust digital infrastructure known as India Stack has been established in the country, integrating government services — including a biometric identification system and digital payments. This has enabled hundreds of millions to come online, and their queries help fine-tune neural networks.

India’s regulatory environment also supports this development. Conark Bhandari from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace indicated that regulations do not restrict companies from transferring data abroad.

«There is nothing in the legislation that hinders the use of information collected in India for training models overseas,» he added.

Indian users welcome the arrival of foreign AI companies, although some are concerned about the impact on local players and the long-term dependency on American platforms.

These worries heightened following the imposition of high tariffs on goods from India by then-President Donald Trump. Venugopal Garre from research firm Bernstein believes that American companies possess greater resources and robust infrastructure, potentially «diminishing India’s prospects» in AI by deterring investments in local startups.

Altman presents a more optimistic perspective, suggesting that the country could emerge as «one of the leaders of the AI revolution.» The question remains: what kind of leader will it choose to be — one that dominates through its vast user base or one that creates its own technologies?

It is worth noting that the India-based startup QpiAI, focused on the integration of artificial intelligence and quantum computing, recently secured $32 million in a new Series A funding round, with the Indian government as a co-investor.