
Metaverse
‘We want to fix the language gap in AI language models’, says Two Platforms’ Pranav Mistry – Crypto News
Backed by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms and South Korea’s Naver Corp, the artificial reality startup also plans to soon release an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered messaging and social app called Zappy in India, according to Two Platform’s founder and CEO, Pranav Mistry.
“Sutra is our mission to fix the language gap in AI language models. We are committed to pioneering AI solutions for non-English markets. We believe our Sutra models will unlock AI growth opportunities in large economies such as India, Korea, Japan, and the MEA (Middle East and Africa) region,” Mistry said in an interview with Mint.
But there are some basic differences “in our approach to building these models”, he insisted. First, unlike most other startups and companies that are building ‘local’ or ‘Indic’ LLMs for India by fine-tuning global LLMs, “we have built a foundational, and not a fine-tuned model,” he said.
General-purpose foundational models such as Google’s BERT and Gemini, OpenAI’s generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) variants, and Meta’s LlaMA series, have been pre-trained on humungous amounts of data from the internet, books, media articles, and other sources. But most of this training data is in English.
A Transformational Approach
Most companies in India are building their Indic LLMs atop these foundational models (hence they’re called ‘wrappers’) by fine tuning these general-purpose LLMs on a smaller, task-specific dataset (such as regional languages like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam, etc., and their dialects), which allows the models to learn the nuances of the language and improves its performance.
Sutra, instead, uses two different transformer architectures. Developed by Google, transformers predict the next word in a sequence of text based on large, complex data sets. Since they process words in a single sequence while understanding their relationships with each other, transformers are very effective for tasks like translating languages.
The multilingual LLM Sutra, according to Mistry, has combined an LLM architecture with a Neural Machine Translation (NMT) one. The reason: while LLMs may struggle due to the lack of specialized training data while translating specific pairs of language, NMT systems are typically better equipped to translate idiomatic expressions and colloquial language.
Second, while “GPT-4 is great in Korean or Hindi, too, its size and cost make it more expensive for a country like India”, argued Mistry. The Sutra architecture “decouples concept learning (we learn concepts by associating new information with existing knowledge, such as learning that both apples and oranges are fruits) from language learning. So, when you use Sutra, the number of the tokens used are similar to using English tokens. This saves almost five to eight times in costs,” he explained.
Third, “our specialized NMT models are significantly smaller in parameter size, requiring much less data for training”, Mistry said. When you add more data, say Korean or some Indian language, you also increase the tokens (loosely, pieces of words and sub-words that an LLM can understand. For example, banana is a word, while homework can be split into two words, home and work). This makes the model bigger, but also slows it down. It increases the costs, too, since similar information content in English, when expressed in a language such as Hindi would need three to four times more tokens.
“Besides, in this approach, the quality of, say Hindi, can never surpass that of English in the original,” Mistry added. For instance, about 80% of a general-purpose foundational model pre-training would typically be from sources such as the internet, books, and media articles, which are mostly in English.
Innovation, Not Fine-tuning
However, if you’re fine-tuning this model with data in Hindi from India, for instance, “most of the data would be about cricket, data found on Twitter, or from people discussing news articles, etc., in Hindi. Hence, a Hindi language model built atop a foundational model that has pre-trained mostly on English will not be able to do full justice to the output in Hindi”.
“As an example, if you want to translate Gujarati to Tamil, most models first translate from Gujarati to English and then from English to Tamil, because that’s the data they have trained on. Our model does not do that, so we also require fewer tokens, which also lowers the cost of running the model,” he explained. Mistry adds that Two Platforms’ model is also aligned to human values, a process technically known as ‘AI alignment’.
Sutra, which is currently available in three versions—Light (56 billion parameters), Online (internet-connected multilingual model with 56 billion parameters), and Pro (150 billion parameters)—supports more than 50 languages, “of which 31 are fully tested”, according to Mistry. He emphasized that Sutra’s architecture and use of “synthetically translated data” not only lowers the computing costs of running these models, but also makes the model more efficient.
“Sutra maintains an impressive performance in English of 77% on the MMLU (massive multitask language understanding) benchmark. It also demonstrates superior and consistent performance in the range of 65-75% across languages. In contrast, many leading language models score closer to 25% on non-English MMLU tasks,” Mistry said.
Two Platforms uses its “in-house GPU (graphics processing unit) cluster and rents top-tier cloud GPUs when needed”. “As we expand, the rising costs of training will require us to create specialized models for different areas like images and video,” Mistry added. His company is also in the process of raising a Series A round “to accelerate the development of Sutra into a model-as-a-service (MaaS)” platform. In February 2022, Jio Platforms had invested $15 million in Two Platforms for a 25% equity stake, while a Naver Corp unit, Snow Corp., had invested $5 million.
Other than Sutra, India has Sarvam AI—a generative AI (GenAI) startup that has launched the Open Hathi series; Tech Mahindra’s Indus Project; the ‘Hanooman’ model that was jointly released this month by SML India and 3AI Holding, an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm; CoRover’s BharatGPT LLM-based chatbot; and Ola Cabs and Ola Electric co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal’s Krutrim AI. Meanwhile, the ‘Nilekani Center at AI4Bharat’ at IIT Madras, too, released ‘Airavata’ an open-source LLM for Indian languages.
In a wider context, the LLM market is projected to grow from $6.4 billion in 2024 to $36.1 billion by 2030, according to a research report released by MarketsandMarkets in March. Moreover, India-specific LLMs are certainly the need of the hour but “we need faster, more affordable, multilingual, and energy-efficient LLMs that can bridge the existing market gaps”, concluded Mistry, who hopes Sutra will be one of those companies that “fills this gap”.
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Crypto Hedge Fund Veterans Seek $100M to Buy BNB, Emulating Saylor’s Bitcoin Strategy – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Change In US Crypto Laws May Affect Charges In Do Kwon’s Criminal Case – Crypto News
-
others7 days ago
Gold retreats while Fed Powell and President Trump clash over interest rates – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Branded smartwatches under ₹5000 for style and functionality: Top 10 picks for everyday wear – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Best Crypto to Buy as Polymarket Nears $1B Valuation – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Top 10 air coolers for monsoon: Handpicked products for effective cooling from trusted brands – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
SHIB Price Prediction for June 26 – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency5 days ago
Friday charts: Retail is one-upping Wall Street – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Investor Anthony Pompliano Launches $1B Bitcoin Treasury Firm – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Anchorage to Integrate Uniswap to Wallet for Insitutional DeFi – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
What next for XRP after breaking above the $2.15 resistance? – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Tariffs may be adding a quarter of a percentage point to inflation right now – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Bitcoin Price Could Rally To $110,000 ATH As These Macroeconomic Factors Align – Crypto News
-
others7 days ago
EUR/JPY steadies near 169.00 as traders await the next catalyst – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Bearish Breakdown Meets Bullish Flag, Which Will Prevail? – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Bearish Breakdown Meets Bullish Flag, Which Will Prevail? – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
Bitcoin rallies to $106K on Mideast ceasefire news; Circle shares continue explosive climb – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
US judge rules Anthropic’s use of books for AI training is fair use: All you need to know – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
OpenAI and Jony Ive’s AI hardware ambitions hit roadblock over trademark dispute: Report – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Best laptops under ₹40,000 (June 2025) with latest processors, SSD storage, and Windows 11 features, Top 10 picks – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
US Housing Chief Orders Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to Prepare for Crypto Assessment in Mortgages – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Payments Giant Fiserv to Roll Out ‘Bank-Friendly’ Stablecoin on Solana – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Walmart Ordered To Pay $10,000,000 After Retail Giant Allegedly ‘Turned a Blind Eye’ to Scammers Exploiting Customers – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Bitcoin Wobbles? Metaplanet Buys Big, Breaks $1 Billion Mark – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Indian Rupee recovers as Oil falls post Iran strike, Fed dovish signals limit US Dollar strength – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Cutting Block Times To Boost Performance – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
US stocks downplay Iran retaliation concerns as indices edge higher – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Bank of America, Netflix and Apple Customers Targeted by Widescale Google Search Scams: Report – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Taker Buy Volume Spikes Sharply – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Synaptogenix Acquires Bittensor’s TAO for AI Crypto Treasury – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Right now, we’re in watch and wait mode – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Turkey plans stricter crypto rules to fight money laundering – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Winnebago Industries (WGO) tops Q3 earnings estimates – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Barclays to Ban Crypto Purchases via Credit Card – Crypto News
-
others6 days ago
AI-Focused Layer-1 Blockchain Altcoin SAHARA Flames Out Following New Binance Listing – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency6 days ago
Vodafone Share Price Tests 78p Ahead of July Earnings, Is a Breakout Imminent? – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency6 days ago
TRON price forecast as USDT supply surpasses $80 billion – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
FactSet research (FDS) Q3 earnings lag estimates – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Google introduces AI-powered Chromebook Plus 14: Features, specifications, and more – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
Polymarket ‘politics’ markets surge, Celestia rethinks consensus – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) Lead $1,240,000,000 of Inflows to Crypto Products Despite Geopolitical Tensions: CoinShares – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
German IFO Business Climate Index rises further to 88.4 in June vs. 88.3 expected – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Jerome Powell testifies Fed is well-positioned to wait to learn more about economy – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Aptos and Jump Crypto Launch Shelby, a Web3 Cloud Storage Platform – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Dragonfly-Backed Codex Launches Blockchain for Stablecoins with Native USDC Support – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
US judge rules Anthropic’s use of books for AI training is fair use: All you need to know – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
Solana-based StarFun lets projects raise capital with crypto – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Many Senators Absent From ‘Bipartisan’ Crypto Market Structure Hearing – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Australian Dollar advances as US Dollar struggles following Israel-Iran ceasefire – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
BTC holds $106K; analysts point to institutional integration, on-chain innovation – Crypto News