OpenAI vs Anthropic rivalry in full display as both CEOs skip "unity handshake" at New Delhi Summit
- Marijan Hassan - Tech Journalist
- 30 minutes ago
- 2 min read
AI-1
In a visual that has launched a thousand memes, the intense rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic was stripped of all corporate polish last week. This was during the closing photo-op of the India AI Impact Summit, when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei conspicuously refused to join hands, despite a direct call for a symbolic show of industry unity by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The moment, captured in a viral video, saw a chain of world leaders and tech titans, including Google’s Sundar Pichai and Meta’s Alexandr Wang, holding hands and raising them in a "V for Victory" gesture. However, the chain broke exactly where Altman and Amodei stood side-by-side; the two rivals instead raised separate clenched fists, studiously avoiding eye contact.
"Confused" or calculated?
The "fist-bump that wasn't" quickly became the talk of the summit. When later questioned by reporters in a closed-door session, Altman attempted to downplay the awkwardness.
"I was sort of confused and didn't know what I was supposed to do," Altman told the press. "Modi grabbed my hand and put it up, and I just wasn't sure what the protocol was. I thought it was the OpenClaw."
The "OpenClaw" comment was a double-entendre. Shortly after the incident, OpenAI’s official X account posted a cheeky edit of the photo, replacing the CEOs' hands with oversized red lobster claws, a reference to OpenAI's recent strategic hire of Peter Steinberger, the creator of the viral OpenClaw agent framework.
Deep roots of the rivalry
To industry observers, the lack of a handshake was far from surprising. The friction between the two men is both personal and philosophical.
If you don’t remember, Amodei was a top executive at OpenAI before leading a "mass exodus" of researchers in 2021 to found Anthropic. The split was fueled by concerns that OpenAI was prioritizing commercial speed over safety.
The tension reached a boiling point just days ago when Anthropic aired a Super Bowl ad titled "Deception and Betrayal," which criticized OpenAI's rumored plans to bring advertisements to ChatGPT. Altman fired back on social media, calling the ad "clearly dishonest" and "authoritarian."
Poaching war
In the weeks leading up to the summit, both firms have been locked in a high-stakes talent war, with OpenAI reportedly offering multi-million dollar "signing bonuses" to lure Anthropic’s top safety researchers back into the fold.
The battle for Bharat
Despite the personal chill, both companies are racing to capture the Indian market, one of the world's fastest-growing tech hubs.
OpenAI’s expansion
At the summit, Altman announced the opening of two new offices in India and a massive partnership with Jio to integrate ChatGPT into millions of Indian handsets.
Anthropic’s counter-move
Not to be outdone, Amodei announced a collaboration with Infosys to deploy its Claude models within the Indian enterprise sector, touting it as the "safer, ad-free alternative" for Indian sovereign data.
A divided frontier
While Prime Minister Modi used his speech to call for a "human-centric, inclusive AI" that brings nations together, the body language on stage told a different story. The "AI Cold War" between the former colleagues suggests that even as the technology advances at a breakneck pace, the human leadership remains deeply, and perhaps permanently, fractured.
