Global tech firms likely to lead India’s local AI compute charge
NEW DELHI : New Delhi: Big Tech firms such as Google, Microsoft and Nvidia are expected to lead India's efforts to develop a centralized computing infrastructure, which the India AI Mission, approved by the Union Cabinet on Thursday, envisions. For these firms, creating artificial intelligence (AI) computing infrastructure will entail strategic investments in India’s developing technology ecosystem, industry experts and stakeholders said.
The ₹10,372 crore ($1.3 billion) outlay of the AI Mission will have the Centre back an AI-compute-as-a-service programme, build subject-specific large language models (LLMs) through AI Innovation Centres, and create a Unified Data Platform to open-source Indian language datasets for AI applications. To build compute, the Centre will seek public-private partnerships—wherein private firms that offer proposals under the Mission would be approved by the Centre to build the AI compute in question.
Speaking on the matter in an interview with Mint, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union minister of state for IT, said, “AI compute infrastructure and data centres will be offered as a service, and built by private technology companies. Funding by the India AI Mission will be based on proposals received and evaluated." Chandrasekhar confirmed that once built, the AI infrastructure programme will be merged with the second phase of the National Supercomputing Mission.
“Public-sector capacity will be created by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), and its technology and startup ecosystem. The latter will offer AI-compute-as-a-service, based on designed-in-India Rudra servers.
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