Interview: India should develop full AI stack; want to partner, invest here, says OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

A week after the launch of China’s DeepSeek AI model wiped nearly a trillion US dollars in market cap off American tech stocks, triggering an AI arms race between the US and China, and drawing inevitable parallels with “the Sputnik moment”, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and the poster boy of the US AI industry, appeared altogether unimpressed with the frenzy. During an interview in New Delhi, sporting a powder blue sweater, dark trousers and Adidas sneakers — the established dress code of the Silicon Valley tech workforce — Altman appeared focused and unperturbed, as he took questions from ET’s Samidha Sharma and Sruthijith KK, on a range of themes.