OpenAI Says India Among World’s Most Advanced AI Markets
NEW DELHI — India ranks among the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence markets, particularly in areas such as coding, data analysis, and complex reasoning, according to a new assessment from OpenAI.
The U.S.-based technology company said India is among the top five countries globally in per-person usage of advanced “thinking” capabilities, measured by reasoning tokens used by ChatGPT Plus users.
India is also emerging as one of the fastest-growing AI developer ecosystems. OpenAI reported a fourfold increase in users of its Codex platform within two weeks of the app’s launch in February 2026.
Despite that rapid growth, AI adoption in India remains concentrated in a limited number of major cities, with more advanced usage even more unevenly distributed, the company said.
“The central question now is how quickly the benefits of AI can extend beyond early adopters and leading cities to the wider population. Closing this gap will require expanding access, building skills, and enabling more meaningful use across the country, an effort shaped in large part by India’s young, fast-adopting population,” said Oliver Jay, Managing Director for International at OpenAI.
According to the findings, the top 10 cities account for roughly half of all AI users while representing less than 10 percent of the population.
The Delhi-NCR region has the highest penetration of ChatGPT users in the country. Other major hubs for advanced AI use include Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai, where capabilities are clustered in urban centers.
OpenAI said the concentration highlights a “capability gap,” noting that outside major cities, emerging use cases are increasingly focused on sectors such as education and health, where AI is being applied in everyday contexts.
The disparity is especially pronounced in advanced applications. Data analysis usage in leading cities is up to 30 times higher than in lagging regions, while coding usage is about four times higher and developer usage of Codex is nine times higher.
The company said expanding access and skills development will be critical to ensuring that the benefits of AI are more broadly shared across the country. (Source: IANS)
