India has 100 million weekly ChatGPT users, says Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that India has around 100 million weekly active ChatGPT users, making it one of the company’s largest markets globally.

Altman shared this figure ahead of the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, where OpenAI plans to join.

The company opened a New Delhi office in August 2025 and has tailored its offerings for India’s price-sensitive market, including a low-cost ChatGPT tier that was later made free for a year.

Altman highlighted India as ChatGPT’s second-largest user base after the US, with a significant number of student users.

The platform’s global weekly active users reached around 800 million by October 2025, with estimates approaching 900 million.

Indian students have become a key segment for AI companies, with Google offering free subscriptions and other firms integrating AI tools into education.

Altman also mentioned plans to expand AI access through new partnerships with the Indian government.

🔗 Source: TechCrunch

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

India’s user growth is a double-edged sword for OpenAI

India is ChatGPT’s second-largest user base after the U.S., yet revenue has lagged behind usage.
In the 90 days before August 2025, India logged 29 million app downloads while OpenAI brought in $3.6 million from in-app purchases 1.
That gap pushed OpenAI to roll out the lower-cost ChatGPT Go plan for under $5 a month 1.
Rivals such as Perplexity (an AI-powered search and answer engine) and Google offer free premium subscriptions to large cohorts of Indian users. OpenAI also offers ChatGPT Go free for one year to users in India who sign up during a limited promotional period starting Nov. 4 1.

The rush for Indian AI users is fueling a data center boom

OpenAI’s push in India fits the Indian government’s goal to become a global AI infrastructure hub.
India’s 2026 budget set a tax holiday through 2047 for eligible foreign cloud providers that use India-based data center infrastructure to serve customers outside India. Domestic services must route through an Indian reseller entity 2.
Forecasts put data center capacity at four to five times today’s level by 2030, with almost $70 billion in investments already in motion 2.
U.S.–India tech-policy talks also include proposals to speed up permits for trusted U.S. partners. It remains a recommendation rather than a policy, plus it does not target OpenAI 3.