A brief but noticeable moment at India’s AI Impact Summit 2026 sparked widespread chatter online after the CEOs of rival AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic avoided holding hands during a group photo.
The moment, caught on camera during a high-profile appearance alongside Narendra Modi, has since gone viral, with social media users describing it as everything from “awkward” to a symbol of the ongoing “AI Cold War”.
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What happened on stage
After the keynote session at the summit on Tuesday morning, several of the world’s technology leaders were invited to the podium to take photos with the prime minister. Among those present were Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and Alexandr Wang.
As the group gathered, Prime Minister Modi held the hands of two leaders standing next to him — Sundar Pichai on one side and Sam Altman on the other — and encouraged them to raise their hands for the cameras.
That’s when the moment stood out. Altman and Amodei standing next to each other did not follow suit. Instead of holding hands, the two raised their fists in the air, avoiding physical contact altogether.
The visual, despite only lasting a few seconds, quickly found its way onto social media timelines.
Internet Reacts: ‘Classic AI Cold War Vibes’
The clip soon began appearing on X, with users dissecting body language and drawing connections to the well-documented professional rift between the two AI leaders.
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One user wrote: “Dario Amodei (Anthropic) & Sam Altman (OpenAI) straight up skip holding India AI Impact Summit 2026 in Delhi. No contact. Classic Cold War AI waves: Amodei quit OpenAI in 21 due to clashes between security and speed.”
Another user commented: “Just look at Sam Altman, the guy literally wavered.”
A third post read: “Sam Altman and Dario Amodei didn’t hold hands. Dario was chief researcher at OpenAI before leaving to found Anthropic in 2021 due to differences in security, governance and pace of commercialization.”
Others expressed similar sentiments:
“Sam Altman and Dario Amodei made sure hands didn’t touch at AI Summit in Delhi,” wrote one user.
Another added: “OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei refused to hold hands during a unified photo-op with Indian PM Modi and other AI leaders at the India AI Impact Summit.”
OpenAI vs Anthropic
While the moment may have seemed trivial, it touched a nerve because of the larger rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic — two companies that are shaping the global AI race in different ways.
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OpenAI is known for rapidly deploying consumer tools like ChatGPT, prioritizing scale and broad adoption. Anthropic, on the other hand, positions itself as an AI-first company, emphasizing controlled deployment and ethical red tapes, particularly through its Claude chatbot.
What Dario Amodei said earlier
Amodei, who served as vice president of research at OpenAI, left the company in early 2021 to co-found Anthropic with his sister and other former OpenAI researchers.
In a 2023 interview with Fortune magazine, he opened up about the split. “You needed something more than just scaling the models, which is alignment or security. You don’t tell the models what their values are just by pouring more computation into them,” he said.
While neither Altman nor Amodei have commented on the viral moment, the clip has become a topic of conversation — not only about body language, but also about the philosophical divide shaping the future of artificial intelligence.