Make OpenAI offerings, including its APIs, more affordable for developers and introduce India-specific pricing tiers - That appears to be the key message from top Indian startup founders to OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman during his visit to India on February 5.
Altman's closed-door meeting with founders comes amid the rise of Chinese AI lab DeepSeek which claims to have built AI models that can rival top-tier models from US companies such as OpenAI, Meta, and Google at a fraction of the cost.
India, which has one of the world's largest developer base, is a critical market for OpenAI as the company looks to ramp up its revenues globally, particularly in the Asian continent. The country is also the second-largest market for the ChatGPT maker, with users tripling over the past year, Altman said during a fireside chat with IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
In the meeting, founders stated that OpenAI’s pricing was currently too high for the Indian market, especially in comparison to new competitors like DeepSeek.
“There were some people who pointed out that the cost of DeepSeek APIs is dramatically lower compared to OpenAI APIs. Although Sam did not commit to anything, he said that options of open sourcing and reducing costs are both on the table,” Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma told Moneycontrol.
Startup leaders expressed that the company would need to cut down on its pricing to make it big in India.
“(One of the key takeaways was) acknowledgment that pricing is high currently and that for mass scale adoption, it would need to come down dramatically. Possibly more updates on that in the future,” Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl said in a tweet on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Aakrit Vaish, advisor to the government’s India AI mission, told Moneycontrol that the closed-room discussion ranged from OpenAI’s plans for India, making their products more accessible in the country, and challenges faced by companies that are using OpenAI products at present.
India-specific pricing tiers was a key topic of discussion during the meeting, with various stakeholders suggesting that OpenAI introduce localised pricing which could significantly bring down their costs.
“Many companies like AWS and Google have India specific pricing. The cost of servicing hundreds of millions of users needs to be more affordable. You could have India specific tiers,” said a founder who was part of the meeting but wished to remain anonymous.
Other attendees of the closed-door meeting included prominent startup founders such as Unacademy’s Gaurav Munjal, Fractal’s Srikanth Velamakanni, Ixigo’s Aloke Bajpai, and HeathifyMe’s Tushar Vashisht.
It also saw participation from notable investors like Peak XV Partners’ Rajan Anandan and Harshjit Sethi, Accel’s Prayank Swaroop, and Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Hemant Mohapatra.
India a key market
Altman, who is visiting India after two years, is currently on a whirlwind multi-country tour covering Japan, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, and Germany. He was joined by top OpenAI leaders including COO Brad Lightcap, CPO Kevin Weil, VP-Engineering Srinivas Narayanan.
Altman’s India visit also comes at a time when the company is facing legal challenges over alleged use of copyright content.
OpenAI didn’t announce any specific deals or partnerships for the India market, unlike other markets where it announced commercial deals and collaborations with tech giants such as SoftBank and Kakao in the past few days
Altman did, however, make it clear to startup leaders that India was a key market for OpenAI.
“It is clear that things are just getting started for OpenAI…It is also clear from Sam and his team’s trip that India is very important to them. Indian developers, startups, consumers, and maybe even enterprises, are important to their business,” said Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder and Group Chief Executive, Fractal.
Discussions also focused on how OpenAI can grow in the Indian context, and help Indian developers tap into bigger opportunities by solving local challenges.
“It was a very healthy session with exchange of ideas and thoughts on how to solve for India-specific problems, be it understanding local languages, having a real-time voice API, etc. Their progress on Indic languages was also discussed,” said Aloke Bajpai, Managing Director and Group CEO at traveltech platform Ixigo.
These developments come as the Indian government is accelerating its efforts towards building multiple foundational models, which are expected to be launched in the coming months.
Last week, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the government has identified a handful of startups capable of developing these models, as part of the Rs 10,738 crore India AI Mission.
During the fireside chat, Vaishnaw said that India should also be able to develop a large language model (LLM) at a fraction of the cost compared to other countries, similar to how the country was able to land Chandrayaan-2 on the Moon's surface at a significantly lower cost than others.
“This (Altman’s visit) is a testament to the fact that India can win the application layer. We have been lagging behind in the foundational model race, but I think steps are now being taken in the right direction. If China can do it, we can also do it,” said Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of edtech unicorn Unacademy.
“The application layer is something that I am very confident that we will win, because we have a lot of founders that are building great stuff for both India and the US,” he added.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
