<\/p>\n
New Delhi: The Union government on Friday approved the empanelment of 15,640 new graphic processing unit (GPU) processors from data centre and cloud service providers, and also appointed three new startups that will get access to these chips for free, to train their artificial intelligence models.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sanjeev Bikhchandani\u2019s Info Edge Ventures-backed AI startup, Gnani.ai, was one of the three startups appointed to build a sovereign foundational AI model for voice-based AI services. The startup will build a 14-billion parameter voice AI model and real-time speech processing and \u201cadvanced reasoning capabilities.\u201d\u00a0Foundational AI models are typically better when they are based on larger volumes of training data. But, smaller models are less expensive to train, are more targeted towards specific industries, and are easier to run.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The other two startups appointed include Bengaluru-based Sokal AI Labs, and Noida-based Gan AI. While Sokai AI is building a 120-billion parameter foundational AI model catering to defence, education and healthcare sectors, Gan AI will build a 70-billion parameter multilingual foundational model for varied applications.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sovereign AI models refer to foundational algorithms built for usage in generative AI applications, but not by global companies. Sovereign models are typically trained on a nation\u2019s indigenous datasets, which theoretically help in adding local market data, language and context to AI applications.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The three startups join Peak XV-backed Sarvam AI, which became the first startup appointed by the ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity)\u00a0<\/strong>to build a foundational AI model for India. Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the first of the four foundational models will be rolled out before the end of 2025.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In terms of compute, Hiranandani Group\u2019s Yotta Data Services was empanelled by Meity a second time, and will supply over 8,000 units of Nvidia\u2019s B200 GPUs to cater to the mission. A senior official with direct knowledge of the matter said requesting anonymity that the GPUs will be brought into service within the next two to three months, as Yotta is still in the process of installing them in its data centres.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sify Digital Services was also a part of the empanelled GPU providers, and will supply an unspecified number of Nvidia\u2019s H100, H200 and L4 GPU chips.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Access to these GPUs is crucial in terms of training AI models. Ganesh Gopalan, chief executive of Gnani.ai, told\u00a0Mint\u00a0<\/i>that the government empanelment will reduce the company\u2019s operating cost to \u201cone-tenth of what it was before.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Abhishek Upperwal, chief executive of Soket AI, added that \u201cover 70%\u201d of the company\u2019s cost of research and development, as well as training of AI models, are linked to access to GPUs for computing power. \u201cThis is the least possible cost of compute that we\u2019re getting access to. We\u2019re in talks with venture capital firms for a seed funding round in order to accelerate our research, and within the next one year, a version of our foundational model should be ready,\u201d Upperwal said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Abhishek Singh, chief executive of India AI Mission and additional secretary, Meity, added that the Centre had received \u201cmore than 500 applications for developing India\u2019s foundational models.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThere will be more startup selections in the next few days. On 9 June, Meity is also meeting applicants to empanel more cloud compute providers, and there will be a rolling empanelment process where vendors will be brought online as and when required,\u201d Singh added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The $1.2-billion IndiaAI Mission is tasked with backing startups to build foundational AI models in India, create a subsidized cloud compute platform to help academia, researchers and startups access GPUs to train AI models, and create datasets in Indian languages to train AI models. It is also set to build a marketplace to help startups developing AI models to sell their services to clients.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Access to a foundational model is expected to reduce a nation\u2019s dependence on other countries for what is being viewed as a fundamental piece of technology going forward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Entrepreneurs added that the development can amplify market outreach for startups building sovereign AI models. \u201cThe government itself can be a key client. But additionally, reducing the cost of compute can help startups build models more efficiently, which in turn can reduce the need for capital that is the biggest cost factor behind developing AI models and conducting R&D,\u201d Gnani.ai\u2019s Gopalan added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Vaishnaw added that the new announcements mark \u201csignificant progress\u201d under the goals set forth by the IndiaAI Mission. \u201cWe have 367 datasets on the mission\u2019s non-personal data platform, AI Kosh. The entire ecosystem is being built right now in AI, and the IT industry should capture this transition as an opportunity, rather than be disrupted by it. AI development is also creating an opportunity to reverse India\u2019s brain drain, and bring talented engineers back to the country,\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New Delhi: The Union government on Friday approved the empanelment of 15,640 new graphic processing unit (GPU) processors from data centre and cloud service providers, and also appointed three new startups that will get access to these chips for free, to train their artificial intelligence models. Sanjeev Bikhchandani\u2019s Info Edge Ventures-backed AI startup, Gnani.ai, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[36393,28656,284,3017,263,262,260,259,258,8961,36394,36395,19139,7539,265,1207,202,3906,261,15255,36396,448,182,264],"class_list":["post-393741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metaverse","tag-ai-kosh","tag-ai-mission","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-ashwini-vaishnaw","tag-axie-infinity","tag-axs","tag-decentraland","tag-facebook","tag-game","tag-gpu","tag-h100","tag-h200-and-l4-gpu-chips","tag-indiaai-mission","tag-it-industry","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-meity","tag-nft","tag-nvidia","tag-sandbox","tag-sarvam-ai","tag-sify-digital-services","tag-startup","tag-technology","tag-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393743,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393741\/revisions\/393743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Yotta helps out<\/h2>\n
Atmanirbhar Bharat<\/h2>\n