OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Thursday at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 that, if his predictions hold, by the end of 2028 more of the world’s intellectual capacity could exist within data centres than outside it.
“This is an extraordinary statement to make, and of course we could be wrong, but I think it really bears serious consideration. A super intelligence at some point on its development curve would be capable of doing a better job being the CEO of a major company than any executive, certainly me, or doing better research than our best scientists,” he added.
Economic And Social Impact
Altman described AI’s transformative potential, saying, “If we are right and systems continue to improve at this pace, it’s going to change the economics of a lot of things… many things are going to get much cheaper and have much faster economic growth.”
He cited examples including better access to healthcare and education, as well as automation in supply chains that could lower the cost of physical goods.
He acknowledged the disruption AI will bring to current jobs, warning, “It’ll be very hard to outwork a GPU in many ways… but we should all hope future generations feel much more fulfilled than we do today.”
He added that each generation builds on the work of the previous one, with AI raising the “scaffolding” of human capability.
A Democratic AI Future
Altman framed AI as a moral imperative, saying, “It is a moral imperative to make sure that our great, great grandchildren can stay the same, and technology, and especially AI is how we’re gonna get there.”
He added that giving people both tools and agency is essential for a democratic AI future. “Sharing control means accepting that some things are going to go wrong in exchange for not having one thing go mega wrong, cemented, totalitarian control.”
“The next few years, will test global society. As this technology continues to improve at a rapid pace, we can choose to either empower people or concentrate power.”
He called for global coordination in managing AI development, comparing it to the IAEA. “The world may need something like the IAEA for international coordination of AI, and especially for it to have the ability to rapidly respond to change in circumstances.”
Core Beliefs: Democratisation, Resilience And Inclusion
Altman outlined three principles guiding OpenAI. First, he said, “democratisation of AI is the only fair and safe path forward… AI should extend individual human will.” He warned that centralising AI in one company or country could be dangerous.
“Some people want effective totalitarianism in exchange for a cure for cancer. I don’t think we should accept that trade off, nor do I think we need to.”
Second, he said that AI safety must include societal resilience alongside technical safeguards. “There’ll be extremely capable bio models available, open source, that could help people create new pathogens. We need a society-wide approach about how we’re going to defend against this,” he said, noting that no AI lab or system alone can deliver a safe and flourishing future.
Third, he highlighted the need for inclusive governance: “Many people need to have a stake in shaping the outcome… it’s important to be humble about what we don’t know and always remember that sometimes our best guesses are wrong.”
Altman said iterative deployment of AI allows society to integrate new capabilities thoughtfully, noting, “This has been working surprisingly well so far.”
India’s AI Growth And Global Role
Altman praised India’s rapid adoption of AI, calling it “striking how much progress India has made in its mission to put AI to work for more people in more parts of the country.”
He noted that “more than a hundred million people in India use ChatGPT every week. More than a third of them are students. India is also the fastest growing market now for Codex, our coding agent that works to help people develop software faster and better.”
He said India, as the world’s largest democracy, is well positioned “not just to build [AI], but to shape it and decide what our future’s going to look like,” and praised the country’s leadership in building sovereign AI infrastructure. |
