Sarvam AI to Receive First IndiaAI Mission Grant

In a significant boost to India's artificial intelligence (AI) sector, Sarvam AI is set to become the first recipient of funding under the government's ambitious IndiaAI Mission. The startup is expected to receive a substantial grant of Rs 220 crore, primarily in the form of free access to approximately 4,000 Nvidia H100 chips for six months. These chips are pivotal for the development and training of advanced AI models.

Building Indigenous Large Language Models

Sarvam AI, founded by tech veterans Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar and incubated at IIT Madras, has already made strides with its 2 billion parameter model tailored for Indian languages. The grant will further empower the startup to enhance its model, aiming to outperform global benchmarks in AI responsiveness and accuracy for Indian languages.

IndiaAI Mission's Broader Vision

The IndiaAI Mission, with a budget allocation exceeding Rs 10,300 crore, is designed to foster innovation and infrastructure in the AI domain. Key initiatives include the establishment of the IndiaAI Compute Capacity, IndiaAI Innovation Centre (IAIC), and IndiaAI Datasets Platform, alongside a state-of-the-art shared computing facility equipped with 18,693 GPUs.

With over 190 proposals submitted for creating domestic AI models, the mission underscores India's commitment to becoming a global leader in AI technology.