[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] A debate in India’s technology industry over cutting reliance on foreign AI is intensifying after Anthropic blocked access to its latest AI models Mythos and Fable under a U.S. government directive, TechCrunch reported on Saturday.

According to the report, Anthropic announced it would stop access to the Fable5 and Mythos5 models for foreign nationals.

The move came shortly after Anthropic struck a partnership with Indian IT conglomerate Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to expand the adoption of AI by Indian companies.

Anthropic and OpenAI have both described India as their second-biggest market after the United States.

Aakrit Vaish (아크리트 바이시), founder of Indian AI venture platform Aakrit Vaish, said, "This incident fundamentally changed the way everyone thinks about sovereign AI in India." He said he plans to advise portfolio companies to reduce dependence on a small number of AI providers and shift to open-source models.

Vijay Rayapati (비제이 라야파티), co-founder and CEO of Atomicwork, said, "If an AI team is not made up only of U.S. citizens, it becomes disadvantaged in the competition," adding that inequality in access to cutting-edge AI models is directly linked to corporate competitiveness.

Sridhar Vembu (스리다르 벰부), founder of Indian software company Zoho, said, "Technology is the ultimate weapon," and urged Indian companies to shift to smaller open-source models.

Prashanto Roy (프라산토 로이), a technology policy expert based in New Delhi, predicted the incident would heighten Indian government concerns about strategic autonomy, similar to cases in which Russia’s access to SWIFT was blocked after the invasion of Ukraine. He said, "The Anthropic incident shows there is no such thing as a geopolitically neutral foreign AI model," and added, "U.S. AI models are tied to U.S. geopolitics."