New Delhi: A department under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has asked ministries not to deploy OpenAI and Anthropic’s models for cybersecurity and related functions for now, ThePrint has learnt, days after the two companies approached several ministries with their proposals.
An office memorandum has been circulated to this effect, asking ministries not to put such models into use prematurely. The representatives of the two companies met officials across ministries to press for deployment, a source told ThePrint. The number of ministries approached and the level at which the meetings took place could not be confirmed.
The Ministry of Finance was among those that wrote to the department, asking if the ministry could examine the use of agentic AI and the deployment of OpenAI models. In its six-page letter, reviewed by ThePrint, the Ministry of Finance specifically asked about deploying GPT-5.5 for cybersecurity work.The letter, titled ‘In light of LLMs being used: AI-based vulnerability discovery, AI-assisted cybersecurity capabilities and implementation’, set out proposals on what could be deployed and was sent for consideration.In a memorandum last week, the department returned a firm no. The source quoted above said the memorandum does not amount to a permanent restriction. The department’s objection is about the timing of deployment rather than a bar on the technology.
