OpenAI Researcher Urges India to Prioritize Indic AI Models Over Foundational Ones

• OpenAI researcher Sushant Sachdeva advises India to focus on AI models tailored for Indian languages instead of competing in foundational AI.
• Sachdeva, an Infosys Prize 2025 awardee, highlights that building foundational models is capital-intensive and puts India in direct competition with global leaders.
• He emphasizes India's linguistic diversity and large population as key advantages for developing underserved local language AI systems.
• India possesses the talent and technical capability to build robust local language models by leveraging existing public models and datasets.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently stressed the importance of indigenous AI models promoting local content and regional languages.

Why It Matters: India should leverage its linguistic diversity to develop Indic AI models, rather than competing in capital-intensive foundational AI.