OpenAI announced Thursday that data from Indian users of ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Edu, and its API platform will now be stored locally within the country, marking a significant expansion of the company’s global data infrastructure.
The move comes as India has emerged as OpenAI’s second-largest market globally, with its user base tripling in 2024 alone, according to CEO Sam Altman who visited the country in February.
“This will help companies using these products meet local data sovereignty requirements when using OpenAI products in their businesses and building new solutions with artificial intelligence,” the company stated in its announcement.
OpenAI Brings Data Residency to India
For Indian users of enterprise and educational versions of ChatGPT, the change means all their interactions with the AI system—including conversations, uploaded files, and content across text and image formats, will remain within India’s borders.
Developers using the API platform can enable regional data storage by creating new projects and selecting India as their preferred location.
During his February visit to India, Altman expressed admiration for the country’s AI ecosystem: “Seeing what people are building in India with AI at all the levels of the stack, chips, models…you know all of the incredible applications, I think India should be doing everything. It is quite amazing to see what the country has done and embraced the technology.”
Following Altman’s trip, OpenAI executives held strategic meetings with high-level government officials from various ministries including the Prime Minister’s Office and engaged with technology policy advocacy groups. These discussions highlighted India’s importance in OpenAI’s global strategy.
The data residency program addresses growing concerns about data sovereignty and security in the age of AI. By storing user data locally, OpenAI aims to comply with emerging regulations while fostering trust among institutional and enterprise customers in the region.
OpenAI Expands Data Residency to Asia Amidst Regulatory Landscape
Thursday’s announcement also extended similar data residency options to users in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, complementing earlier implementations in European markets. These expansions reflect OpenAI’s response to the varied regulatory environments across global markets and increasing demand for localized data storage.
“Data residency builds on OpenAI’s robust data privacy, security, and compliance features, which support hundreds of organisations partnering with OpenAI across Asia today—startups, large enterprises, academic institutions etc—including Kakao, SoftBank, Grab, Singapore Airlines, and many more,” OpenAI explained in its blog post.
Industry watchers point out that OpenAI’s move is part of larger trends among technology leaders in setting up regional data centers to accommodate expanding global user bases in the face of challenging regulatory landscapes on data protection and digital sovereignty.
The firm had been seemingly gearing up for the shift since early 2024, with Business Standard in February reporting that OpenAI had started establishing data center operations in India to address growing usage and more diversified applications of its AI offerings in the country.
This follows a string of other significant news for OpenAI, such as CEO Sam Altman’s recent announcement that the company would retain its non-profit status instead of pursuing previously discussed for-profit aims, ongoing legal action by Elon Musk, and technical changes to its newest GPT-4o model which were briefly reversed after end-users complained the AI’s answers were getting too sycophantic or accommodating.
With AI adoption picking up speed across the world, growing worldwide infrastructure by OpenAI demonstrates the increasing mainstream use of generative AI technology and the growing need to accommodate regional regulatory demands and user expectations for data handling policies.
