OpenAI eyes collaboration with India for data centres
OpenAI's chief strategy officer Jason Kwon, who is currently in Delhi, has been touring across Asia Pacific, covering countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and Singapore, meeting governments and potential private-sector partners to discuss opportunities within the 'OpenAI for Countries' initiative.
The 'for Countries' initiative works in a two-way partnership between the US and another country. In its pilot project announced with UAE last month, the middle=east country will house a 1-gigawatt AI computing cluster called Stargate in Abu Dhabi, while also investing in similar AI infrastructure in the US as part of the US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership.
While details of the India-US partnership under the 'OpenAI for Countries' initiative remain undisclosed, the company's goal is to pursue 10 projects with individual countries or regions as the first phase of this initiative, and expand from there, said a company blog post.
In a step towards 'cultivating AI talent' in India, OpenAI, in partnership with MeitY's IndiaAI Mission, launched 'OpenAI Academy' to give India's developer community and network of startups and innovators access to AI education and tools. The two also signed a memorandum of understanding, making it OpenAI's first international launch of its education platform.
The MoU outlines seven joint initiatives, including OpenAI contributing educational content to IndiaAI Mission's FutureSkills platform to support digital skilling. The educational content will also be hosted on the iGOT Karmayogi platform to train government officials, initially in English and Hindi, and later in four regional languages.
Additionally, OpenAI will conduct regular webinars and in-person workshops in six cities, and provide up to $100,000 in API credits to 50 IndiaAI-approved fellows or startups. The partnership also includes a series of hackathons across seven states, expected to reach around 25,000 students, with winners receiving invitations to attend OpenAI Dev Day events internationally.
'We believe the latest AI frameworks and tools must be made widely accessible so that our startups, developers, and researchers can build faster, better, and at scale,' IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a video message at the event.
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