India has 100 million weekly active ChatGPT users, making the country one of OpenAI’s biggest markets globally, CEO Sam Altman said ahead of a government-run AI summit.
On Sunday, Altman described the growing adoption of ChatGPT in India in an article published in India’s English-language daily Times of India, as OpenAI prepares to officially participate in the five-day India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, which begins on Monday. Altman is attending the event along with senior executives from several of the world’s leading AI companies.
The development comes as OpenAI, like other leading AI companies, looks to India’s young population and more than one billion internet users to fuel global expansion. The ChatGPT maker opened an office in New Delhi in August 2025 after months of working in the country and has tailored its approach for India’s price-sensitive market, including launching a sub-$5 ChatGPT Go tier that later became free for one year for Indian users.
In the article, Altman said India is ChatGPT’s second largest user base after the United States, underscoring the South Asian nation’s growing weight in OpenAI’s global strategy. The revelation comes as overall use of ChatGPT has grown globally, with the platform set to reach 800 million weekly active users by October 2025 and reported to be approaching 900 million.
Altman also highlighted the role of students in adoption, saying that India has the largest number of student users of ChatGPT globally.
Indian students have become a key growth segment for leading AI companies more broadly as rivals scramble to integrate their tools into classrooms and learning workflows. Google has similarly targeted the market by offering to Indian students free one-year subscription to the AI Pro program In September 2025. Separately, India accounts for the highest global use of Gemini for learning, Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president and general manager of education, said last month.
“With its focus on access, practical literacy and the infrastructure that supports broad adoption, India is well-positioned to expand who benefits from the technology and help shape how democratic AI is adopted at scale,” Altman wrote.
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ChatGPT’s rapid growth also highlights a broader challenge for AI companies in India: translating broad adoption into sustained economic impact. Indian government initiatives such as the IndiaAI Mission—a national program aimed at expanding computing capacity, supporting startups, and accelerating the adoption of artificial intelligence in public services—seek to address these gaps. However, the country’s price-sensitive market constraints and infrastructure have made monetization and large-scale growth more complex than in developed economies.
“Given India’s size, it also risks missing a vital opportunity to advance democratic AI in emerging markets around the world,” Altman wrote, warning that uneven access and adoption could concentrate AI’s economic benefits in too few hands.
Altman also signaled that OpenAI plans to deepen its engagement with the Indian government, writing that the company will soon announce new partnerships aimed at expanding access to artificial intelligence across the country. He did not elaborate, but said the focus would be on expanding the reach and enabling more people to put AI tools to practical use.
THE AI Impact Summit in India is expected to attract a wide range of global technology and political leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google’s Sundar Pichai and high-ranking Indian business executives such as Mukesh Ambani and Nandan Nilekani. Political leaders including Emmanuel Macron, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are also expected to attend, underscoring India’s ambition to position itself as a central player in global AI discussions.
For global AI companies, including OpenAI, the summit highlights how India’s huge user base translates into growing influence over how technology evolves.
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.
