Altman and Amodei share a moment of awkwardness at India’s big AI summit

Ivan Mehta

Thu, February 19, 2026 at 10:49 PM GMT+9 1 min read

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) takes a group photo with AI company leaders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman © and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei ® at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 19, 2026. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) | Image Credits:Ludovic MARIN / AFP / Getty Images

What would have been a moment of united commitment to global tech innovation at the ongoing India AI Impact Summit instead proved an awkward one: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi prompted speakers at the event to join hands and raise them in a show of solidarity, all executives on stage obliged — except OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, who held their hands noticeably apart.

As leaders of the two foremost labs in the AI race, it goes without saying that Altman and Amodei are fierce competitors. That rivalry has only intensified in recent months: after OpenAI said it would bring advertisements to ChatGPT, Anthropic took a swipe at OpenAI in a couple ads during the Super Bowl, declaring that it would never introduce ads into Claude.

Altman soon after hit back in response, calling Anthropic “dishonest” and “authoritarian.”

“We would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them. We are not stupid, and we know our users would reject that,” he wrote at the time.

Both Altman and Amodei were in India this week for the AI summit held in New Delhi, which saw a bevy of AI-related investments, features and products being announced. OpenAI said it is opening two new offices in India, partnering with IT giant TCS, and is deploying tools for higher education. Anthropic has also opened an office in India and teamed up with Infosys for internal and external deployment of its AI tools.

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