Prafulla Dhariwal: From Pune prodigy to brain behind OpenAI GPT-4o

In 2013, Pune-boy Prafulla Dhariwal scored a total of 295 marks in physics, chemistry, and mathematics (PCM) in Class XII. A student of P Jog Junior College, Dhariwal’s exceptional performance earned him the prestigious Abasaheb Naravne Memorial Award, a recognition instituted by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) to honor meritorious students from the science stream. He then scored 190 in the Maharashtra Technical Common Entrance Test (MT-CET) and scored 330 out of 360 in the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE-Mains). 

Dhariwal aspired to pursue engineering and had his sights set on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a decision influenced by the comprehensive scholarship offered by the institution, covering both tuition fees and residential facilities.

When asked about his plans, Dhariwal, at that time, had told Mid-Day newspaper: “I have not decided yet. I will only focus on studies. After finishing my engineering, I would like to join the research sector where I will get an opportunity to create something useful.”

Fast forward to more than a decade later, he is now a computer scientist and has emerged as the main brain behind OpenAI’s latest innovation, GPT-4o -- a groundbreaking model marking OpenAI’s first natively fully multimodal AI.

OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, recently acknowledged Dhariwal’s pivotal role in developing GPT-4o. On May 16, Altman posted on X: “GPT-4o would not have happened without the vision, talent, conviction, and determination of @prafdhar (Prafulla Dhariwal) over a long period of time. That (along with the work of many others) led to what I hope will turn out to be a revolution in how we use computers.”

Dhariwal, who heads the Omni team at OpenAI, spearheaded the creation of GPT-4o. This model integrates text, voice, and vision into a single model, allowing it to process and respond to a combination of data types. Showcased at the Spring Update event, the model can understand audio, images, and text at the same speed and generate responses via audio, images, and text.

“GPT-4o (o for ‘omni’) is the first model to come out of the omni team, OpenAI’s first natively fully multimodal model. This launch was a huge org-wide effort, but I’d like to give a shout-out to a few of my awesome team members who made this magical model even possible,” Dhariwal wrote on X on May 15.

Dhariwal's academic brilliance was evident from a young age. He won the National Talent Search Scholarship from the Government of India in 2009 and secured a gold medal at the International Astronomy Olympiad in China. His early promise was further solidified when he won gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad and the International Physics Olympiad.

According to reports, his mother Alka was a teacher at an engineering college and taught fluid mechanics and his father, Sushil, holds a B Tech degree and owns a ceramics company.

Dhariwal had been accepted by both IIT and MIT (US). Dhariwal went on to pursue a Bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics at MIT, where he also served as an undergraduate researcher at the Centre for Brain, Minds, and Machines. 

He joined OpenAI in May 2016 as a research intern and quickly became a key team member. He is one of the co-creators of many top AI models, including GPT-3, DALL-E 2, Jukebox, and Glow.