As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman concluded his New Delhi visit as part of a world tour, a team of OpenAI executives made a stop-over at Chennai for a series of engagements.
OpenAI’s VP of Engineering Srinivas Narayanan and Public Policy and Partnerships Lead for India Pragya Misra were in Chennai on Friday and met Tamil Nadu’s IT minister Palanivel Thiagarajan and also visited IIT Madras for a special lecture at the institute.
Among other things, the discussion with the minister included the role of OpenAI’s models to speed up citizen services delivery by the state and how the platform can help train the state’s youth in AI skills.
“We had a wide-ranging discussion, with an immediate focus on exploring the possibility of using OpenAI’s models to speed up the delivery of e-Sevai services across our 30,000 plus centres, and to work through ICT Academy in training our youth to get a leading edge in AI skills, a field where technical breakthroughs are happening rapidly,” the minister wrote on social media platform LinkedIn, about the visit.
State sources noted that the visit was more casual in nature and centered around how OpenAI’s platforms have potential for use by governments for governance efficiency. Tamil Nadu already has a partnership with Google for AI skilling of its youth under Naan Mudhalvan scheme, and Google has also set up a Tamil Nadu AI Labs at Chennai under this MoU.
OpenAI’s Narayanan, who leads teams behind products like ChatGPT and Developer API, is an alum of IIT-Madras and he also headed to IIT-Madras to address students of the institute.
Srinivas Narayanan, VP of Engineering, OpenAI, during his lecture at IIT Madras, Chennai
| Photo Credit: IIT-Madras
In a fireside chat with IIT-M Professor B. Ravindran, Narayanan acknowledged recent developments around DeepSeek but emphasized that OpenAI remains focused on its vision for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). He downplayed speculation about a significant cost disparity between OpenAI’s models and other competitors and noted that the “price curve keeps coming down every several months.”
Speaking about OpenAI’s engagement with India, particularly CEO Altman’s recent visit, Narayanan dismissed claims that Altman’s views on India had changed dramatically. He cited conversations with India’s IT Minister as evidence of OpenAI’s role in supporting India’s AI ambitions from hardware, foundation models and applications. “India is the largest democracy and the opportunities to make AI beneficial for the people is immense,” he said.
Regarding the impact of AI on jobs, particularly in software development, Narayanan said that AI would not replace software engineers entirely but would automate coding tasks allowing engineers to focus on complex problem-solving. There will be gradual evolution in AI executing more complex tasks, he added.
In his lecture, he also touched upon AI safety, highlighting OpenAI’s approach to risk assessment.