At the ongoing India AI Impact Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attempt to showcase unity in global tech innovation took an unexpected turn. When he invited the event’s speakers to clasp hands in a gesture of solidarity, all on stage complied except OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, who clearly kept their hands apart.
Altman and Amodei, leaders of top AI labs, are well-known rivals. This competition has escalated recently: after OpenAI announced plans to integrate ads into ChatGPT, Anthropic criticized OpenAI with Super Bowl ads, stating Claude would remain ad-free.
Altman later retaliated, branding Anthropic as “dishonest” and “authoritarian.”
“We would obviously never run ads as Anthropic portrays. Our users wouldn’t accept that,” he wrote at the time.
Both Altman and Amodei were present in India for the New Delhi summit, which unveiled numerous AI-related investments and offerings. OpenAI is opening two new Indian offices, partnering with TCS, and rolling out higher education tools. Anthropic has also inaugurated an office in India, collaborating with Infosys to implement its AI solutions internally and externally.