Indian businesses can now process supported AI workloads within the country through OpenAI’s new inference residency option. The move is aimed at organisations that need greater control over where sensitive information is handled, particularly in sectors such as banking and financial services.
The new capability allows both incoming requests and model computations, known as inference, to take place within India rather than being routed to servers overseas. This could help businesses address data residency requirements while adopting AI for everyday operations.
Nitin Bawankule, Head of Enterprise – India at OpenAI, highlighted the importance of the development.
“Some Indian businesses have not fully deployed AI for important work because they need the information involved to be processed within the country,” he said.
“Local inference gives them more control over where supported workloads run and helps address a practical barrier to adoption. It gives more businesses a way to put OpenAI’s tools to work, and gives Indian developers and startups more scope to build for their own, and enterprise needs.”
GPT-6 Luna available for local processing
At launch, the feature supports the GPT-6 Luna model. Businesses can use it for text-based tasks such as summarising lengthy documents, drafting responses and analysing internal information.
To enable the service, organisations must create a new API project on the OpenAI platform, select India for both data storage and processing, and use the dedicated India regional endpoint.
The service currently supports GPT-6 Luna inputs and outputs through the direct Responses and Chat Completions APIs.
Part of OpenAI’s India expansion
The launch forms part of the “OpenAI for India” programme, introduced earlier this year to strengthen AI infrastructure and enterprise adoption.
OpenAI has also partnered with the Tata Group to develop domestic AI data centres. The company recently introduced a similar local data residency capability through AWS Bedrock.
India joins Australia and Japan as markets where OpenAI has expanded its local processing capabilities, highlighting the country’s growing role in the company’s global AI strategy.
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