ChatGPT-maker OpenAI initiates process to set up data centre in India, says report

OpenAI

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has initiated the process to set up data centre operations in India, the Business Standard has reported. The centre is likely to store data of Indian users and some of its smaller neighbouring countries.

"They are talking to some data centre operators right now, but these are very initial phases of their plan. It may take some time for them to get down to the details, such as the location and capacity," the report quoted a sources as saying. The AI giant is keen to complete the process in 2025 but hasn't set a timeline, the report said.

Moneycontrol couldn't independently verify the report.

Most of OpenAI's servers are located in data centres at Texas, US. The maker of the popular chatbot uses Microsoft's Azure Cloud services to serve other users around the world, including India.

During his recent visit to India, CEO Sam Altman said India is the second-biggest market for OpenAI, which has seen a three-time surge in users over the past year.

"I see people in India are building with AI at all levels of the stack - chips, models, you know, all of the incredible applications. So, I think India should be doing everything. I think India should be one of the leaders of the AI revolution," Altman said on February 5 during a fireside chat with IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

Altman sought to clarify a remark that created a stir when he was last in India, "That's a reference to a comment I made here a few years ago about cost. Maybe that was taken out of context. That was at a very specific time when there was a certain scaling thing, where I thought, and I still think, to stay on frontier of pre-trained models, is expensive," he said.

When he was in India in 2023, he was asked if a small team can create a significant AI model at a small budget of $10 million. "It's totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models," he had said. It was much before Chinese DeepSeek shook the tech world with its low-cost AI assistant.