OpenAI’s India Gambit: All-In on Infrastructure, Local Partnerships, and Expanding Presence

OpenAI is betting big on India which now has 100 million weekly ChatGPT users, and also one of its largest markets.

Its expansion includes entering into multiple partnerships with local players, opening new offices, and much more. These new announcements have come on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 wherein CEO Sam Altman also made a strong presence.

“India is already leading the way in AI adoption, and with its homegrown tech talent, optimism about what AI can do for the country, and strong government support, it is well placed to help shape its future and how democratic AI is adopted at scale. Through OpenAI for India, we’re working together to build the infrastructure, skills, and local partnerships needed to build AI with India, for India, and in India,” Altman said in a statement.

OpenAI for India & Partnerships

On the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026, the company has announced ‘OpenAI for India’, a nationwide initiative wherein it is working with Indian partners with an objective to expand access to AI.

TCS’s HyperVault

In one of the biggest tech collaborations, OpenAI has partnered with Tata Group’s TCS. Described as a “multi-dimensional strategic AI partnership” the two companies will work together to develop AI infrastructure.

According to the firms, TCS’s HyperVault unit and OpenAI through a multi-year partnership will develop AI infrastructure in India, starting with infrastructure with 100MW of capacity. This could be further scaled 1GW.

TCS and OpenAI will enable Indian and global enterprises to transform with AI-powered solutions tailored to their organizational contexts. Through this collaboration, TCS will help its customers accelerate AI-led transformation by deploying, integrating, and scaling OpenAI’s advanced AI platforms worldwide.

The two firms will also partner for providing AI training and resources to Indian youth as well as provide technology toolkits for NGOs. Moreover, several thousand employees will be given access to Enterprise ChatGPT.

N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata with Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI

Conversational Streaming

JioHotstar, India’s largest streaming platform, has teamed up with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT-powered voice discovery and more contextual AI driven features to the platform.

The streaming company says that JioHotstar is solving the “what to watch” dilemma through Multilingual Cognitive Search, replacing scroll fatigue with meaningful, human-centric discovery.

“Instead of navigating menus or typing keywords, viewers can simply speak their intent, mood, or context and receive intelligent, context-aware recommendations instantly. The ChatGPT-branded voice assistant completely replaces restrictive keyword-based discovery with recommendations for not just what viewers explicitly ask, but for what they didn’t yet know they were looking for, unlocking a richer, more meaningful way to experience entertainment,” according to a press release.

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AI-driven Travel

MakeMyTrip said it is working with OpenAI to deepen AI-led travel discovery and capture high-intent travel queries. As part of this collaboration, MakeMyTrip plans to leverage OpenAI’s APIs to power new AI features in its app.

“MakeMyTrip is using OpenAI’s APIs to make travel planning feel less like filtering and more like a conversation, with recommendations and itineraries that reflect what a traveler actually wants. Advanced AI is not just about enterprises and how they use it internally, but how they can also transform their consumers’ experience and engagement with the platform,” said Oliver Jay, Managing Director, International, OpenAI, in a statement.

Upskilling

OpenAI said it is now expanding OpenAI certifications in India. As mentioned above, TCS is the first one to become part of the program outside the US. These certifications are aimed at working professionals to get onboard with the AI skills.

OpenAI has also partnered with a slew of educational institutions under which it will provide more than 100,000 ChatGPT Edu licenses aimed at empowering students with workforce-relevant skills. The local partners for upskilling are: Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi ,Manipal Academy of Higher Education, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, and Pearl Academy.

New Offices in India

OpenAI recently opened its first office in India in New Delhi. The company is now looking to expand its official presence in the country by opening up its office in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Interestingly, rival Anthropic officially opened its first office in Bengaluru earlier this week. Anthropic’s playbook for India is very similar to OpenAI’s or vice-versa. This includes a lot of local partnerships, expanding local presence and also focus on educational institutions.

India AI Impact Summit Overview

Apart from OpenAI, the ongoing India AI Impact Summit is witnessing wide interest from global leaders and technology players. According to Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), said that India is poised to attract more than USD 200 billion in AI-related investments over the next two years.

He said, “(We see) lots of interest in venture capital towards deeptech investments. Bharat’s innovative prowess and its existing digital public are the reasons there is already an adequate framework.”

Mukesh Ambani has made an audacious bet on India’s AI capabilities in the future, with a USD 109.8 billion (INR 10 lakh crore) investment push over the next seven years.

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According to Ambani, the investments will be pushed towards building AI-ready data centers and sovereign compute infrastructure in the country. Ambani outlined a multi-pronged strategy that includes the construction of multi-gigawatt, AI-ready data centers, with 120 MW capacity coming online later this year, the use of up to 10 GW of renewable power from solar farms to power the infrastructure sustainably, and a nationwide edge compute layer integrated with Jio’s network to deliver low-latency intelligence across urban and rural India.

Separately, Microsoft today reaffirmed its long-term commitment to the region with an announcement of a USD 50 billion AI investment in the Global South by 2030, a continuation of its already significant USD 17.5 billion India-specific investment announced previously.

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