/Tech27d ago

OpenAI signs deal with Malta government for first national rollout of free ChatGPT Plus after residents complete an AI literacy course

AI Judge changed title after evaluation, original title: "Malta offers free ChatGPT Plus to citizens for one year"

Announced May 16 2026, the AI for All program begins in May and uses a University of Malta course on fundamentals and responsible use.

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Original post

Chubby♨️@kimmonismus#1360inTech

Malta just became the first country to offer ChatGPT Plus to every citizen - free for a year.

The only requirement: complete an AI literacy course first.

The course was built by the University of Malta, not by OpenAI. So it's not a vendor training citizens to use vendor products. It's a national institution teaching AI fundamentals, with tool access as the incentive to finish.

Honest take: I find this a very exciting project. I'm curious about the results, how it will affect AI usage and the intelligence of young people.

11:35 AM · May 16, 2026 · 39.7K Views

Sentiment

Positive users praise OpenAI's Malta deal for nationwide ChatGPT Plus access as a huge smart initiative that boosts AI adoption while negative users call it a manipulative customer funnel or criticize Malta as corrupt.

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63.7%

Neg

36.3%

25 comments with sentiment.

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Greg Brockman@gdb

Countrywide ChatGPT Plus access for Malta:

Reuters@Reuters

OpenAI seals deal in Malta to give all Maltese access to ChatGPT Plus http://reut.rs/4drXSf3 http://reut.rs/4drXSf3

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xlr8harder@xlr8harder

This is more interesting than the article suggests. Maltese is an extremely low resource language with only 400k speakers.

I'd be curious to hear from any Maltese speakers how well these models handle Maltese.

Reuters@Reuters

OpenAI seals deal in Malta to give all Maltese access to ChatGPT Plus http://reut.rs/4drXSf3 http://reut.rs/4drXSf3

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Chubby♨️@kimmonismus

Source: official OpenAI blogpost https://openai.com/index/malta-chatgpt-plus-partnership/

Chubby♨️@kimmonismus

Malta just became the first country to offer ChatGPT Plus to every citizen - free for a year.

The only requirement: complete an AI literacy course first.

Honest take: I find this a very exciting project. I'm curious about the results, how it will affect AI usage and the intelligence of young people.

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xlr8harder@xlr8harder

One consequence of this could be that OpenAI gets a bunch of unique Maltese data from users.

I wonder if there are any data deals as part of this agreement, in either direction.

xlr8harder@xlr8harder

This is more interesting than the article suggests. Maltese is an extremely low resource language with only 400k speakers.

I'd be curious to hear from any Maltese speakers how well these models handle Maltese.

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찡긋@Alignment100

@gdb How about you? OpenAI Korea B2C "ME"

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찡긋@Alignment100

@gdb OpenAI Korea B2C "ME"

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Vishruth Harithsa@theharithsa

This is a dangerous move from the government. It is a two-edged sword, though. Now it becomes critical for @OpenAI to put proper guardrails and implement security. Does this move mean the government is going to pay OpenAI the subscription charges? @grok, what do you think about this more strategically?

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Catalin@catalinmpit

@kimmonismus Smart government

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wyqtor@wyqtor

@xlr8harder Maltese is basically a Maghrebi Arabic dialect with a lot of Italian and English vocabulary. A smart human acquainted with Arabic and Italian can learn Maltese pretty fast.

26d384

Bojan Tunguz@tunguz

@gdb @dvassallo big bet or a small bet?

Greg Brockman@gdb

Countrywide ChatGPT Plus access for Malta:

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LegendaryGoldenNFT@GoldNFT_Legend

@Reuters AI access will become as essential as internet access. ⚡

27d1935

xlr8harder@xlr8harder

@wyqtor I didn't know that, but I would expect models will not easily differentiate it from the related languages.

I understand regional Arabic dialects struggle with this, as do the two Norwegian written forms, etc.

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ToastexGD@Toastex_GD

@gdb @grok is this true? and for how long

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WhereIsTheLie@WhereIsTheLie01

@gdb @grok you remeber when meta did this in Africa with internet? What was the point of that, dont assume altruism

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xlr8harder@xlr8harder

@zehavoc There is so much value in this work, and it's a really interesting area!

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Max Schoon@MaxSchoon

@kimmonismus Dutch here. Malta's 500K citizens get a year of ChatGPT Plus free + an AI literacy course from the University of Malta (not OpenAI). NL's AI policy is governance-first; Malta's is access-first. Two different EU bets on the same question: who foots the transition?

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Marius Miclau@MiclauMarius

@kimmonismus I want that Malta university training as well , where can I find it ?

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Schwarz@alleingrau

@kimmonismus Have they fixed the issue with sessions constantly crashing in the desktop app?

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Chubby♨️@kimmonismus

@alleingrau i dont have that problem tbh

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xlr8harder@xlr8harder

@techczech Is there less than like a billion tokens of Maltese to train models either?

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