India's AI landscape is evolving, but not every company will receive government support.

The IndiaAI Mission, overseen by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, is driving the nation's push toward indigenous large language models (LLMs). With a budget of ₹10,372 crore, the initiative aims to build cutting-edge AI models tailored to India's needs. However, the government has made it clear—it won’t be offering financial incentives to large IT service providers or well-funded AI companies. The reasoning? These businesses have ample resources and can purchase GPUs and fund their projects independently.

New Players in the AI Race

The IT ministry unveiled three new indigenous LLMs in addition to Sarvam's ongoing development efforts.

  • Soket is building India’s first open-source foundation model with 120 billion parameters, optimized for diverse languages and aimed at applications in defence, healthcare, and education.
  • Gnani.ai is working on a 14-billion parameter voice AI model, designed for real-time speech processing and advanced reasoning.
  • Gan.ai is developing a 70-billion parameter multilingual model, focusing on next-gen text-to-speech capabilities

AI’s Growing Infrastructure Needs

Developing LLMs requires massive computational power—which is where GPUs come in. So far, the government has received bids for over 34,000 GPUs, with another 12,000 expected by June 10. The procurement process has attracted bids from major tech firms, including Tata Communications, Jio Platforms, and Yotta Data Services.

In the first phase, Sarvam has been allocated 4,000 GPUs for six months to fuel its LLM development, while the Bhashini division has received 3,000 GPUs to advance language translation technologies What’s Next for AI in India?

Looking ahead, the government hopes to approve 12–15 more proposals from startups working on LLMs, small-language models (SLMs), large multimodal models (LMMs), and large reasoning models. These initiatives could reshape India's position in the global AI race, fostering innovation while keeping the focus on domestic advancements.

With strategic policies and selective funding, India is paving the way for its own AI ecosystem, balancing industry collaboration with national technological growth.

Exciting times ahead! 💡🚀 #IndiaAI #ArtificialIntelligence #LLMs #TechInnovation