US-based Anthropic and OpenAI, the world’s two largest artificial intelligence (AI) startups and bitter rivals, are said to be eyeing IPOs at $1 trillion valuations each. India has, however, remained quiet since its chaotic five-day AI Impact Summit in February. Most domestic AI firms have yet to make a significant impact, and India’s leading enterprises continue to partner primarily with American giants. Where do India’s AI startups stand? Mint explains.
Where do Anthropic, OpenAI's IPO plans stand?
On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that OpenAI was looking for a public listing by October this year. The startup is valued at $852 billion as of 31 March. Last week, the Financial Times (FT) reported Anthropic’s upcoming fundraise at a valuation of $900 billion. Both the firms have made foundational strides in AI, with the latest coming in cybersecurity through Anthropic’s Claude Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 Cyber, and before that with the US government’s defence and war divisions. Google, their closest competitor, last week unveiled a new search interface, while its research arm DeepMind’s chief said artificial general intelligence (AGI) can “cure all disease” in the near future.
Are India’s govt-backed AI startups doing well?
India’s $1.2-billion AI Mission, in its 26 months of existence, approved funding in the form of compute infrastructure and additional cash for 12 startups. Of these, the three firms of note are Peak XV and Lightspeed-backed startup Sarvam, publicly-listed Fractal Analytics, and Maker’s Lab–a unit of Tech Mahindra, India’s fifth-largest IT services company. An April report by Bloomberg pegged Sarvam discussing a potential fundraise at a $1.5 billion valuation. Fractal, which went public on 16 February, has a market cap of $1.6 billion, while Tech Mahindra is valued at $14.6 billion. None, however, have made a large foundational model yet.
How has India's AI Mission fared so far?
Over the past two fiscal years and the current one, the Centre has allocated over ₹3,000 crore to the AI Mission. On 4 April, the government informed the Rajya Sabha that the IT ministry had spent ₹400.94 crore under the mission, which was allocated ₹10,372 crore over five years in March 2024. So far, the IT ministry has committed funding worth ₹2,194.29 crore to 12 startups, the last of which was approved in September last year.
Can homegrown AI succeed with corporate India?
With the Centre’s limited spending on AI and private funding far below the scale of US giants, India’s AI progress is still limited to pilots and small-scale projects. Experts say tech service integrators and enterprise clients prefer using Big Tech as their foundational AI models of choice. Sarvam, which has made the most progress, released two models at the AI Impact Summit for enterprises. But so far, it hasn’t disclosed either enterprise uptake or its latest financials. On Wednesday, CNBC US reported Anthropic clocked $10.9 billion revenue in the March quarter—its first ever profitable one.
How can India scale up its AI ambitions?
Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, in December last year, said that India’s approach to AI will be to build applications at public scale. With dataset platforms such as Bhashini at hand, experts said India’s AI approach may look to replicate the success of digital payments by offering AI-driven public services. While commercial success could be difficult through this route, no Indian startup or private entity currently has the capital to emulate the US tech giants, or even China’s DeepSeek, in foundational models. Scaling AI, therefore, may need startups to build applications at scale: which hasn’t been seen yet.