India adopting AI faster than any country; could soon be biggest Codex market: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Thursday described India as the most vigorous adopter of artificial intelligence globally and predicted that the country could soon emerge as the world’s largest market for OpenAI’s coding system Codex.

“What’s happening in India with AI is really quite amazing,” Altman said, praising the country’s “conviction” to invest across the entire AI stack along with rapid user adoption.

Altman said India is currently the fastest-growing market for Codex, OpenAI’s AI system designed specifically for computer programming.

“Someone told me, I think it’ll be the biggest Codex market in the world pretty quickly. I don’t know what this is going to mean for the country, but I don’t know of any country that is adopting AI with more vigour or faster,” he said.

He said that India’s pace of adoption could trigger “an incredible new generation of startups very quickly”, indicating that its tech ecosystem was on the verge of an AI-driven entrepreneurial explosion.

On the possibility of expanding OpenAI’s global AI infrastructure initiative Stargate to India, Altman said, "That is more of India than us, but we like to see it happen fast".

To a question of India's big AI infrastructure with a big line up of USD 100 billion investments in pipeline and whether OpenAI would be open to partnering with India in a bigger way, Altman said, "We would love to".

Altman also weighed in on AI regulation, including labelling of AI-generated content and age-gating policies, suggesting that countries will experiment with different approaches before global standards gradually emerge.

“I suspect we’ll move more towards global standards. But even then, it will never be all the same everywhere...in different countries, people will try different things,” he said. "I suspect different countries will say...total ban on social media for young people, partial ban, no ban at all. And we'll observe how it goes over time."

Altman expects AI to have a big impact on "current kinds of jobs".

"(For) Many jobs, it'll be a partial impact. Some jobs will change entirely, and new jobs will be created completely," he said.

He stressed that while AI tools will become ubiquitous, education systems must evolve to ensure students continue to develop critical thinking skills.

Recalling similar concerns when internet search first became widespread, Altman said society ultimately adapted by shifting focus from rote information to higher-order thinking.

“When the tools get better, the expectations have to go up,” he said, urging educators to assume students will have access to AI tools while designing ways to stretch their creativity and reasoning.