“Indian Companies Cannot Compete With Silicon Valley In AI”, Exclaims ChatGPT Founder; Tech Mahindra CEO Reacts “Challenge Accepted”

Sam Altman, Founder of Open AI software ChatGPT is on a six-nation tour. One of those six nations is India. He was at an event in India when Google Vice President, Ranjan Anandan asked him if India could build an AI tool like ChatGPT.

Mr. Anandan said, “We have got a very vibrant ecosystem in India, but specifically focussing on AI, are there spaces where you see a startup from India building foundational models how should we think about that, where is it that a team from India should start to actually build something truly substantial?”

Answering this Mr. Altman said, “The way this works is we’re going to tell you, it’s totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models you shouldn’t try, and it’s your job to like try anyway. And I believe both of those things. I think it is pretty hopeless.”

Tech Mahindra CEO takes it to heart

CP Gurnani is the CEO of Tech Mahindra. He reacted to this statement through a tweet and said ‘Challenge Accepted’.  The tweet said, “OpenAI founder Sam Altman said it’s pretty hopeless for Indian companies to try and compete with them. Dear Sam Altman, From one CEO to another…CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.”

He futher wrote, “Thank you, Sam Altman, for the clear answer. As you said, ‘it is hopeless, but you will try anyway.’ 5000 years of Indian entrepreneurship has shown us that we should never underestimate the Indian entrepreneur. We do intend to try.”

“This is taken out of context, “responds Mr. Sam

Mr. Sam replied to this matter after Mr. Gurnani took it to Twitter. He said, “This is really taken out of context! the question was about competing with us with $10 million, which I really do think is not going to work. But I still said try! However, I think it’s the wrong question.”

In a tweet following that, Mr. Altman said, “The right question is what a startup can do that’s never been done before, that will contribute a new thing to the world. I have no doubt Indian startups can and will do that! And no one but the builders can answer that question.”

After this, the Tech Mahindra CEO thanked Mr. Altman for the clarification