OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is planning a visit to India in mid-February, which will be his first trip to the country in almost a year, TechCrunch has learned. The visit comes as New Delhi prepares to host a major AI summit expected to bring together top executives from Meta, Google and Anthropic.
India will host its first major AI event, the India AI Impact Summit 2026, in New Delhi from February 16 to 20, bringing together global technology leaders including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and India’s leading business figures such as Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, according to the summit website. Mr. Altman is not currently listed as a confirmed attendee.
However, TechCrunch has learned that OpenAI is planning to hold a separate private meeting on the sidelines of the New Delhi summit, which Altman is expected to attend. The company plans to hold an OpenAI event in New Delhi on February 19, inviting venture capitalists and industry executives, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Altman’s visit has not been made public, and plans are still subject to change, the people said.
Several other U.S. companies are also planning side events around Summit Week. Anthropic will host a developer day in Bengaluru on February 16, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Nvidia also plans to hold an evening event in New Delhi during Summit Week, people familiar with the plans told TechCrunch. (GPU makers did not respond to requests for comment.) The turn of events highlights how global AI companies are looking to engage with India’s business customers, startup ecosystem and developer community.
This visit will be Mr. Altman’s first visit to India in almost a year since he visited India in February 2025. Altman had previously said he planned to return to India in late 2025 following OpenAI’s announcement in August of opening an office in New Delhi, but that visit did not materialize.
Altman’s visit also comes as India has emerged as a key growth market for U.S. AI companies. In recent months, Anthropic announced the opening of an office in Bengaluru and the appointment of former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose as its local head, while Google and Perplexity partnered with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, respectively, to bundle premium AI subscriptions to millions of telecom users.
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OpenAI has been expanding its presence in India in recent months, hiring across enterprise sales, technology deployment, and legal roles focused on AI regulation. The company is currently posting job openings in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. India has become ChatGPT’s largest market by number of downloads and second largest market by number of users. Still, OpenAI faces the challenge of converting that demand into paid subscriptions, and last year introduced a low-cost plan, ChatGPT Go, priced at less than $5, and gave it free for a year to encourage adoption.
OpenAI aims to expand enterprise adoption of ChatGPT while expanding its reach as a mass-market product, and Altman will meet with key technology executives, startup founders and government officials during his visit, sources said. The company is partnering with multiple sectors in India, including education and media, the people added.
OpenAI is also considering India as a potential base for infrastructure expansion, the people said. Last year, Google and Microsoft announced billions of dollars in investments in India to expand their AI and cloud footprints. However, India’s data center ambitions face constraints such as uneven power availability in some regions, high energy costs, and water scarcity, factors that could slow the buildout of AI infrastructure and drive up operating costs for cloud providers.
Still, the Indian government hopes the upcoming summit will solidify India’s position as a destination for large-scale AI investments. The country’s IT minister said in a recent interview that the event could attract up to $100 billion in investment. The federal government is also encouraging domestic startups to build smaller models for regional use cases, ultimately reducing dependence on U.S.-based systems.
OpenAI, India’s IT Ministry, and AI Summit organizers did not respond to requests for comment.
