India has become ChatGPT's largest market globally by weekly active users, with the local user base doubling since January 2026, OpenAI's India managing director Prabhjeet Singh told the Economic Times. Singh attributed the growth to Indian users weaving the chatbot into everyday workflows and finding new uses for it.
The milestone completes a rapid climb. During his visit last year, CEO Sam Altman described India as OpenAI's fastest-growing market and second-largest by users; in February 2026, the company said India had more than 100 million weekly ChatGPT users. To reach users beyond major cities, OpenAI is expanding Indian-language capabilities and focusing on Android-first products, with UPI and payments announcements expected in the coming weeks.
The infrastructure build is matching the user growth. OpenAI's partnership with TCS's HyperVault data centre business starts with 100 megawatts of capacity and could scale to 1 gigawatt, addressing enterprise data residency and security requirements. Its models are also available through AWS's Amazon Bedrock for local inference, keeping request processing within India. The company opened its first India office in Delhi NCR in August 2025 and has announced Mumbai and Bengaluru offices.
Singh said enterprises, global capability centres and startups are moving beyond pilots to production deployments, citing JioHotstar and Cars24, and that India is among the largest and fastest-growing markets for Codex, with significant developer use from tier-II cities. OpenAI is also engaging government agencies, banks and financial institutions on cybersecurity and protection against AI agent misuse, and Singh backed clear AI regulation.
Advertising is part of the India plan too. OpenAI has partnered with Razorpay, whose Engage platform helps Indian brands prepare catalogues, launch and manage campaigns on ChatGPT; early participants include Tanishq, Tata Neu, Shaadi.com and Axis Max Life. Singh said advertisers would not get access to users' personal information and that ads would not influence ChatGPT's answers.
FundForge Insight: "largest market" is OpenAI's own claim, but the supporting detail - doubling since January, 100 million-plus weekly users in February, UPI integration plans - makes the direction hard to dispute. The more consequential story for Indian business is the advertising launch: if ChatGPT becomes an ad surface at Indian scale, it redraws budgets currently split between Google and Meta. Watch how OpenAI prices attention here, and whether "ads will not influence answers" survives contact with revenue targets. Sources: Inc42 (November 3, 2026), Economic Times (November 2026).
