Global AI heavyweights OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity AI are making a strategic push into India, signaling a new chapter in the country’s role in global tech innovation. What began a decade ago as Silicon Valley’s race to capture India’s “next billion users” is now evolving into a race for engineering talent, enterprise partnerships, and AI leadership.

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With over 900 million internet users, India is now one of the largest digital economies outside the U.S. The country’s scale, diverse data, and rapidly expanding tech ecosystem are making it a critical growth engine for AI development.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently announced that the company will open its first India office in Bengaluru early next year. In his words, India will “play a central role” in the global and democratic evolution of AI. OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, has already confirmed its plans to set up an Indian office by year-end and has rolled out an India-specific ChatGPT plan, free for a year starting November.

Meanwhile, Perplexity AI—the San Francisco-based AI search startup—has partnered with Bharti Airtel to give 360 million Indian users a free year of its Pro plan, marking one of the largest tech distribution deals in the country’s history.

India offers a unique blend of massive market scale and high technical talent. Global AI firms view it as both a testing ground for large-scale model deployment and a potential research hub.

“If you want to build a global technology company today, you have to be in India,” said Rajan Anandan, former head of Google India and current managing director at Peak XV Partners. According to him, India is no longer the “next billion users” market—it’s the “first billion users” market for the AI age.

For companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, India’s deep engineering base offers a talent advantage. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Delhi-NCR are already home to thousands of developers working in machine learning, NLP, and data science.

The surge of AI investment is backed by major infrastructure commitments. Alphabet (Google) recently pledged $15 billion to build a massive data-center campus in India—the company’s largest investment in the country. Reports suggest OpenAI is exploring local partnerships for its global Stargate data-center expansion, one of the biggest AI infrastructure projects globally.

At the same time, the Indian government is taking bold steps to nurture a home-grown ecosystem. The IndiaAI Mission, backed by $1.2 billion, aims to develop local AI models in 22 languages, build a national GPU cloud with over 10,000 processors, and train an advanced AI workforce.

Despite the excitement, some Indian technologists warn against repeating past mistakes. Critics argue that while foreign AI firms gain access to local data and users, they must also invest in R&D and job creation within the country.

“India shouldn’t just become a source of data and users,” said Saurav Agarwal, a Bengaluru-based developer. “We need genuine value creation—research, innovation, and products built here.”

There are also concerns about algorithmic bias and digital dependence. A recent study found that some global AI models display caste-based and social biases, underscoring the need for ethical AI standards tailored to Indian realities.

Today, India is no longer just the world’s largest open internet market—it’s an emerging AI innovation hub. From Silicon Valley’s tech corridors to Bengaluru’s rooftops, the message is clear: India is where global AI ambitions will be tested and refined.

If this momentum is harnessed responsibly—with balanced policy, talent development, and home-grown innovation—India could transition from being a user market to a creator economy for the global AI era.

As Rajan Anandan put it, “India has the talent, the market, and the momentum. The next five years will define whether we lead the AI revolution—or just power it from behind.”