(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.