India Denies Pausing OpenAI and Anthropic Cybersecurity AI Deployment After Reports Emerge

Conflicting Reports on Cybersecurity AI Deployment

India finds itself at the center of conflicting narratives regarding the deployment of advanced cybersecurity AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic. Multiple reports suggested that the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) had advised government ministries to refrain from deploying these AI models for cybersecurity purposes, but the Press Information Bureau (PIB) swiftly denied these claims 3

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. The PIB, which serves as the official fact-check agency for the Indian government, stated explicitly that MeitY had not issued any direction or advisory asking ministries to stop the rollout or use of OpenAI or Anthropic's AI models 3

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According to initial reports, an office memorandum circulated by a department under MeitY asked all ministries to refrain from using the models prematurely 1

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. The alleged directive came days after representatives of both companies met officials across multiple government departments to propose the use of their AI models for cybersecurity and similar government functions 2

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Finance Ministry Inquiry and Agentic AI Applications

The Finance Ministry reportedly wrote to MeitY seeking approval to examine the use of agentic AI solutions, particularly GPT-5.5, for cybersecurity work 1

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. The ministry outlined possible applications including finding software vulnerabilities, strengthening cyber defense, and supporting security operations 3

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. The two US AI giants have been marketing their frontier models for defensive cybersecurity that includes automatic discovery of zero-day vulnerabilities, where models such as Anthropic's Mythos 5 and Fable 5, as well as GPT-5.6, can scan codebases for flaws, conduct code reviews, and deploy agentic AI when a model executes multi-step tasks with limited human supervision 1

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Broader Context of AI Governance and Shadow AI Concerns

The confusion reflects India's evolving approach to AI governance. In January 2025, the Finance Ministry asked employees to avoid using AI tools such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek on office devices, citing risks to the confidentiality of government data 2

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. Two months later, the Centre told Parliament that there was no blanket ban on AI tools in government offices, stating officials could use AI while ensuring security and following existing cybersecurity rules 2

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The government's cautious stance may reflect concerns around shadow AI, the use of unapproved AI tools by employees without organisational oversight 2

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. Such use can expose confidential documents when uploaded to public AI platforms, making it harder for departments to monitor data flows and enforce cybersecurity policies. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) recently warned government organisations that advanced AI models could enable more sophisticated cyberattacks and significantly reduce the time available to fix security vulnerabilities 2

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US Export Bans and India AI Mission

The timing of these reports coincides with recent US export bans that affected both companies. On June 12, Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5 and Fable 5 were suspended in response to US government orders 1

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. The Department of Commerce later allowed these models to be shared with "friendly partners" and lifted controls totally on June 30 1

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. The situation with GPT-5.6 was similar, with the company receiving approvals for global rollout only recently 1

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Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu criticized these actions, calling them a sign that globalisation is dead 1

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. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed concerns at a global tech forum, warning of an AI-split where the benefits of frontier AI models aren't shared with the Global South 1

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The Modi government established the India AI Mission in March 2024 with an outlay of Rs.10,372 crore to deliver compute capacity via indigenous chipmaking and building local foundational models 1

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. However, rules around data localisation, cloud empanelment, and data classification of government records remain unclear when it comes to cybersecurity AI models and their AI deployment 1

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. Google recently confirmed that India data would shift to Indian shores with all compute and inference conducted on Indian soil, while Microsoft and Amazon have committed to building AI infrastructure in the country 1

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