Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while hosting the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, extended an invitation to leaders from prominent artificial intelligence companies to join him on stage. The event, intended to highlight a commitment to building more inclusive and multilingual AI globally, garnered unexpected attention due to an awkward interaction between two rival tech leaders: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.

During a collective gesture where Modi clasped hands with those closest to him, including Altman and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and encouraged all 13 tech leaders to lift their hands in a chain, Altman and Amodei, standing next to each other, conspicuously avoided hand contact for several seconds. Both eventually opted to put up their fists instead. This specific moment quickly went viral on social media, becoming a potent visual metaphor for the intense rivalries within the rapidly evolving AI industry, particularly between OpenAI and Anthropic.

Sam Altman later downplayed the significance of the interaction, stating in an interview with Indian media outlet Moneycontrol that he was simply "confused" and "didn't know what was happening" when Modi initiated the hand-holding. Anthropic, on the other hand, declined to comment on the incident. However, the tension between the two companies is well-documented and predates the launch of their respective flagship products, OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude.

The roots of this rivalry trace back to 2021, when Dario Amodei, along with his sister Daniela Amodei and a group of colleagues, departed from OpenAI to establish Anthropic. The new company was founded with a stated focus on the safety and ethical development of artificial general intelligence (AGI), a better-than-human technology that both San Francisco-based firms aspire to build. OpenAI made a significant splash in late 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, which showcased the immense commercial potential of large language models capable of assisting with tasks like email composition, computer code generation, and answering complex questions. Anthropic followed suit in 2023 with its first iteration of Claude.

The differing philosophies and business strategies of the two companies have periodically spilled into public view. A recent instance occurred when Anthropic aired TV commercials during the Super Bowl, which were perceived as mocking OpenAI for its nascent digital advertising initiatives in the free and cheaper versions of ChatGPT. Anthropic's revenue model primarily centers on selling its Claude chatbot to other businesses, while OpenAI has begun incorporating advertisements as a method to monetize the hundreds of millions of consumers utilizing its free ChatGPT services. Altman publicly criticized Anthropic's TV commercials on social media, labeling them as dishonest, further highlighting the competitive landscape in the race for AI dominance.