India is set to unveil its own large language model (LLM) within the next 10 months, according to Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Minister of Electronics and IT. Speaking at a press conference on the India AI Mission, the minister emphasized that the initiative aims to build AI models that align with India’s unique context and culture.
India AI Compute Facility to Support Development
To facilitate the project, India AI Compute Facility has acquired 18,693 GPUs to develop a dedicated LLM tailored for the country. Vaishnaw highlighted India’s growing AI capabilities, comparing its infrastructure to global benchmarks.
“DeepSeek AI was trained on 2,000 GPUs, ChatGPT was trained on 25,000 GPUs, and India now possesses 15,000 high-end GPUs to support AI research and development,” he stated.
The minister also noted that technical partners had begun working and investing in the initiative well before its finalization. The compute facility, he added, will be accessible for use by all stakeholders.
Learning from Global AI Innovations
Vaishnaw acknowledged the impact of Chinese startup DeepSeek, which disrupted the AI landscape with a cost-effective approach. DeepSeek’s AI assistant was developed in just two months at a cost of under $6 million using Nvidia’s H800 chips. The startup’s rapid rise has challenged global perceptions of AI development costs and efficiency.
DeepSeek’s app downloads recently surpassed OpenAI’s ChatGPT on Apple’s App Store, underscoring a shift in AI competitiveness. Vaishnaw drew parallels between DeepSeek’s frugal innovation and India’s mission to build an affordable, localized AI model.
With India’s growing AI infrastructure and government-backed initiatives, the nation is poised to become a key player in the global AI ecosystem.
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