Feb 5 (Reuters) -

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday said India is now

OpenAI's second-largest market by number of users, which have

tripled in the past year.

Altman met with India's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and

discussed India's plan of creating a low-cost AI ecosystem.

Altman lauded the country's rapid AI adoption and growing

ambitions.

Vaishnaw posted on X that he had a "super cool

discussion" with Altman on India's "strategy of creating the

entire AI stack - GPUs, model, and apps" and that OpenAI was

willing to collaborate on all three.

"I think India should be doing everything. I think India

should be one of the leaders of the AI revolution", Altman said,

a reversal from last year when he cast doubt on whether the

country could build a substantial model in the OpenAI space with

a $10 million budget.

It was Altman's first visit since 2023 to India, where his

company faces legal challenges.

Vaishnaw last week praised Chinese startup DeepSeek for

shaking up the sector with its low-cost AI assistant, likening

its frugal approach to his government's efforts to build a

localised AI model.

"Our country sent a mission to the moon at a fraction of the

cost that many other countries did right, why can't we do a

model that will be a fraction of the cost that many others do?"

Vaishnaw said in a video of part of the discussion with Altman

that he posted.

Earlier, India's finance ministry issued an advisory urging

employees to avoid using tools such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek for

official work, citing risks posed to confidentiality of

government documents and data, an internal department advisory

showed.

Before India, Altman visited Japan and South Korea, securing

deals with SoftBank Group and Kakao. In

Seoul, he also discussed the Stargate AI data center project

with SoftBank and Samsung.

OpenAI also faces a high-profile copyright infringement

battle with India's top media houses. The company has said in

court filings it does not have its servers in the country and

Indian courts should not hear the matter.