OpenAI recently announced its largest commercial partnership to date—with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global consulting firm. TCS’s new HyperVault data center business now counts OpenAI as its first customer. This partnership is a small step towards OpenAI’s ambitious Stargate initiative. The purpose is to create AI-ready infrastructure and increase worldwide enterprise uptake of artificial intelligence technologies. In furtherance of that effort, OpenAI will first reserve a 100-megawatt block of data center capacity in India. They hope to leverage this capacity to eventually scale development to 1 gigawatt.
The new data center will allow OpenAI to deploy its more sophisticated AI models from within India, ensuring the highest performance. And by taking advantage of local data center capacity, the company can help ensure low latency for its nationwide user base. For one, it’s a savvy strategic move that hugely benefits OpenAI’s rapidly-growing user base in India. Now with over 100 million ChatGPT users weekly, this cohort consists of students, teachers, developers, and entrepreneurs.
This collaboration represents a massive accelerated advantage in OpenAI’s technical firepower. In addition, it helps address tight data residency, security, and compliance requirements that exist in many regulated industries and government workloads. OpenAI has already begun building a local presence in India. This acquisition will be instrumental in allowing them to comply with regulations and provide higher quality service to their Indian clients.
Notably, OpenAI is growing a team in India! To better serve its existing base of clients in New Delhi, the company will later this year open additional offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru. This expansion is a clear indication of OpenAI’s desire to pursue enterprise partnerships and a deeper focus on connecting with local developers and educational institutions. Earlier this week, OpenAI announced its partnership with the foremost Indian institutions in engineering, medicine and design. This collaboration further deepens OpenAI’s footprint into the Indian market.
Tata Consultancy Services has received backing from the private equity firm TPG. Together, they will pioneer the AI-ready infrastructure required by HyperVault’s data center-as-a-business. TCS’s investment will facilitate the growth of essential data center capacities that align with OpenAI’s needs. OpenAI and TCS have partnered to broaden capacity and inclusion in the AI ecosystem of India. Collectively, they are working to position the country as a global leader in advanced technology solutions.
OpenAI’s recent partnership with Indian conglomerate Tata Group underscores the startup’s deepening roots in India. This alignment will help address the accelerated demand for AI solutions in several industries. The new collaboration will work to build on these and other engaging enterprise partnerships. It further aims to foster better local regulatory alignment, letting OpenAI flourish in alignment with the country’s distinct regulatory environment.