Feb 5 (Reuters) - OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman met

with India's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday and

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

Vaishnaw said in a post 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.

Altman's India visit, his first since 2023, comes at a time

when the company faces legal challenges in the country, its

second-largest market by number of users.

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 friction 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.

Altman's trip to India follows visits to Japan and Korea. He

clinched deals with SoftBank Group and Kakao

. In Seoul, he also held talks with SoftBank and

Samsung about the Stargate AI data centre project that has been

backed by U.S. President Donald Trump.