- Thursday, January 30, 2025
India’s move comes at a time when Chinese company DeepSeek’s AI model overtook ChatGPT as the top-ranked free app on Apple’s appstore, and challenged the US dominance in AI
By: India Weekly
INDIA on Thursday (30) outlined global AI ambitions with plans to build its own ‘foundational model’ that could take on the might of ChatGPT, Deepseek R1 and others, as it lined up “most affordable” common compute facility for startups and researchers.
India’s move comes at a time when Chinese company DeepSeek’s AI model overtook ChatGPT as the top-ranked free app on Apple’s appstore, and challenged the US dominance in AI.
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw exuded confidence that India will build a foundational model that is world-class, and that it will be able to compete with best models across the globe.
On Thursday, New Delhi announced the next steps in its AI blueprint, among them, 18,693 Graphics Processing Unit or GPUs on offer by the empanelled bidders (a list that includes Jio Platforms, CMS Computers, Tata Communications, E2E Networks, Yotta Data Services, and others), and start of AI safety institution, with eight projects approved under it.
The government is also calling for proposals to develop India’s own foundational models that would be aligned to Indian context, Indian languages, culture, basically where datasets are “for our country, of our country and for our citizens” and “biases are removed”.
Put simply, foundation models in generative AI are large, pre-trained models that form the base for a variety of AI applications.
The common compute facility would be made available at a fraction of global cost benchmarks, Vaishnaw assured, 40 per cent of the cost will be borne by the government.
The Minister said there are at least six major developers/startups who would be able to build foundational models in the next 8-10 months at the outer limit, and 4-6 months at a more optimistic estimate.
“Algorithmic efficiency matters a lot, it can deliver a model at much lower cost and less time than the world has seen today,” the Minister said, expressing optimism that India will have a “world class foundational model” in the coming few months.
AI safety is in the spotlight across the world, and India AI Mission too emphasises safe and trusted models.
Vaishnaw announced that AI safety institutions will be collaborative and will act on a hub-and-spoke type model, where multiple institutions can partner to provide and develop tools, frameworks and processes needed for AI safety.
