New Delhi: India continues to tread cautiously on the issue of access to advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models, including Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5, despite an assurance from the United States that trusted partners will not be cut off abruptly. A senior official of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) at an informal briefing Tuesday to mark 11 years of the Digital India programme declined to fully endorse the US assurance, instead laying out a fallback strategy built around open-source and homegrown models to shield Indian researchers from “arbitrary restrictions”.
The official was responding to a question on whether New Delhi trusted a US commitment made on the sidelines of the second Pax Silica summit in Washington last Thursday.Asked whether the Fable model was discussed with India, US Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment Jacob Helberg was quoted by ANI as saying, “We continue to have ongoing conversations about this topic with our Indian friends. These are very sensitive national security discussions that are not quite right for public consumption.”
The senior MeITY official, who did not want to be named, said that the wording needs to be read closely. “What they assured was, if access is given, it will not be [withdrawn]… It is when access is given. I’m saying—what did the US side say? This is what the US side said.” He declined to spell out the basis for the assurance.The official’s comment comes in the backdrop of Washington suspending Anthropic’s Fable model under an export control order.
