OpenAI’s Sam Altman to Attend India’s AI Summit Amid Infrastructure Hurdles and Subscription Struggles
Sam Altman’s unannounced India trip underscores the AI race’s next battleground—and OpenAI’s struggle to turn a massive user base into paying customers.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is planning a mid-February visit to India for the India AI Impact Summit 2026 (Feb 16–20), his first trip to the country in nearly a year. The summit will host executives from Meta, Google, Anthropic, Nvidia, and Indian figures like Mukesh Ambani, though Altman is not yet listed as a confirmed attendee.
OpenAI will host closed-door meetings and a separate event in New Delhi on Feb 19, targeting VCs and industry executives. Anthropic and Nvidia are also hosting side events in India during the summit week.
India is a key growth market for U.S. AI firms: ChatGPT is the biggest AI app by downloads, but OpenAI struggles to convert users to paid subscriptions, offering a $5/year 'ChatGPT Go' plan. Google and Microsoft have announced multi-billion-dollar AI/cloud investments in India, but infrastructure challenges (power, water scarcity) could slow expansion.
India’s IT minister aims to attract $100 billion in AI investment through the summit, while promoting local AI model development to reduce reliance on U.S. systems.
