Sam Altman Said India Couldn't Build a ChatGPT Competitor. It Just Did

The co-founder of an Indian AI venture took up a challenge from OpenAI's Sam Altman, developing a large-language model (LLM) for just $5 million.

In a keynote speech at the fifth annual MachineCon GCC Summit in Bangalore last week, CP Gurnani, the former CEO of Tech Mahindra and the founder of AIonOS, said the LLM was developed within five months.

"Sam Altman challenged everybody that India will never be able to have an LLM," Gurnani said. "I spoke to my chief innovation officer that time at Tech Mahindra... Six hours later, he says I have a plan."

Tech Mahindra, a Mumbai-based multinational IT firm, developed an Indian LLM that can communicate in about 40 different local languages and dialects, to start.

"I am happy to share that they spent less than five million dollars on what Sam Altman said India will never be able to deliver," Gurnani said.

What Altman Said

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was in India in June of last year when he said that it is "totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models."

"You shouldn't try," Alman said at an event organized by the Economic Times. "It's your job to like try anyway. I believe both of those things. I think it is pretty hopeless."

Alman later took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to clarify those comments, which caused a stir in Indian media at the time.

Ilya Stutskever was one of the founders of OpenAI alongside Sam Altman (pictured) Jason Redmond/Getty images

"The question was about competing with us with USD 10 million, which I really do think is not going to work. But I still said try!"

Altman also noted that he thought the question he was asked was fundamentally wrong.

"The right question is what a startup can do that's never been done before, that will contribute a new thing to the world," Altman posted. "I have no doubt Indian startups can and will do that! and no one but the builders can answer that question."

Newsweek reached out on Monday to OpenAI for comment on Gurnani's announcement that an Indian company appears to have done what Altman said wasn't possible.

India Joins AI Race

Gurnani questioned in his keynote speech whether businesses have fully recognized the promise of AI, saying the technology could improve productivity by 40% in areas like sales and customer service.

He also declared India a major player in the AI race and said the country was on its way to becoming self-reliant.

"I'm very convinced that in India, as the semiconductor industry develops, five to seven years later, we would not be looking at someone else," Gurnani said.

Tech Mahindra launched the first phase of its LLM, called Project Indus, on Friday. The model is designed to converse in a multitude of Indic languages and dialects.

"Project Indus is our seminal effort to develop an LLM from the ground up," Nikhil Malhotra, global head of the makers lab at Tech Mahindra, said in a press release. "Through Makers Lab, our R&D arm, we created a roadmap, collected data from the Hindi-speaking population, and built the Indus model."

Indus LLM will use the "GenAI in a box" framework to allow for a simple deployment of the model for enterprise use. The model uses technology, storage and networking capabilities from Dell Computers.

"Accessibility and scalability are increasingly important for organizations looking to unlock the power of GenAI," said Denise Millard, chief partner officer at Dell Technologies. "With the Dell AI Factory, LLMs like Project Indus leverage AI-optimized technologies with an open ecosystem of partners, validated and integrated solutions, services and best practices, accelerating the adoption of AI to drive growth, optimize productivity and promote innovation."

The collaboration is meant to redefine AI solutions, according to Tech Mahindra. The organization imagines the content's use in healthcare, rural education, banking and finance, as well as agriculture and telecom.

"This will not only redefine GenAI solutions but also empower businesses to scale and innovate at an unprecedented pace," said Santhosh Viswanathan, vice president and managing director of the India region for Intel.

Tech Mahindra had previously said it would use Project Indus as the basis of building an LLM to preserve Bahasa Indonesia, the official and national language of Indonesia. Like the Indian LLM, the Indonesian version would allow for people and companies to communicate online in their local dialects and languages. India and Indonesia are each home to more than 700 living languages and dialects.

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