How the AI Boom Turns India’s Data Into the New Oil of the 21st Century
Sam Altman calls India the next great frontier for AI. It's exciting news, but smells less like innovation and more like digital colonisation.
OpenAI’s expansion into India isn’t just about connecting people to artificial intelligence it’s about connecting artificial intelligence to people’s data.
India has become a goldmine not for oil or diamonds, but for human behaviour, language patterns, and personal information. With over a billion internet users and the cheapest data plans on earth, India is the perfect testing ground for Silicon Valley’s next experiment.
When OpenAI launched its cheaper, India-specific chatbot, many celebrated it as “AI for all.” But ask yourself
why cheaper?
Why now?
Because accessibility isn’t always generosity. Sometimes it’s a strategy. The more people use it, the more data it absorbs. Every prompt typed in Hindi, Tamil, or English is for conversation and consumption.
India’s data is being mined at an unprecedented scale, powering Western AI systems that promise “inclusive technology” but operate on deeply unequal terms. The servers may soon be located in New Delhi, but the real power will remain in California. It’s a 21st-century version of the old story, resources extracted locally, profits shipped globally.
Sam Altman’s optimism about India echoes the same tone used by tech titans when they discovered Africa’s minerals or Asia’s factories, hopeful, visionary, and quietly self-serving. The difference is that this time, the raw material isn’t physical. It’s cognitive. It’s us.
Of course, AI can uplift India. It can transform healthcare, education, and governance. But what happens when the very data used to train these systems becomes the property of foreign firms? What happens when algorithms built on Indian thought patterns are owned by entities thousands of miles away?
This is not anti-AI thinking
India’s rise as a digital powerhouse must come with digital sovereignty. Data centres, policies, and regulations must ensure that the knowledge produced in India benefits Indians first. Otherwise, the nation risks becoming what it once was under colonial rule, a resource-rich territory powering someone else’s empire.