19 Companies Bid for GPU Supply in India's AI Mission

19 Bidders, Including Jio and Tata, Seek to Supply GPUs for IndiaAI Mission - MEDIANAMA

19 bidders, including Jio Platforms Limited, Tata Communications, and Yotta Data Services, submitted proposals to provide Graphics processing units (GPUs) under the IndiaAI mission. The Indian government announced the IndiaAI mission in March this year, in an attempt to promote AI research and development in the country. The mission will build 10,000 GPUs under a public-private partnership and provide them to AI startups and researchers. The mission has an overall budgetary outlay of Rs 10,371.92 crore. The Ministry of Information and Technology (MeitY) had put out a request for empanelment (RFE) inviting proposals to provide AI compute and cloud services in August this year. The same month, the Ministry conducted a pre-bid meeting with participation from 50 entities, including cloud and managed service providers, micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and data center service providers. Then, on December 2, MeitY opened up the bidding process. As per the RFE, to be shortlisted, companies must: The Ministry said that a technical evaluation committee will evaluate the bids based on these criteria and will invite eligible bidders to present their proposals through a technical presentation. The selected companies will have empanelment for a period of 36 months, which the Ministry can extend for another 12 months based on mutually agreed terms. Speaking at the Global AI Summit in July this year, Thomas Zacharia from the chip-building company AMD pointed out that India would constantly need to plan for the next generation of GPUs because the developer ecosystem will have an " insatiable appetite for compute cycles." Similarly, at MediaNama's Governing the AI Ecosystem roundtable discussion in Delhi, the founder of AI startup Dubverse, Varshul CW, mentioned that the bulk of the expenditure an AI startup incurs is due to GPUs, adding that India should focus on acquiring GPUs. However, many, like Gaurav Aggarwal, the Vice President of AI at Reliance Jio, are concerned that the Indian government's plan to build 10,000 GPUs will be like a drop in the ocean. "We are not thinking about a startup, we are thinking about a country, right? And [a] country where, you know, at least smaller companies, startups don't have that much access to patient capital," he explained during the Global AI summit earlier this year.

IndiaAI Mission GPU tender: 19 companies submit bids

This initiative plans to make 10,000 GPUs to support India's AI mission which will benefit startups, researchers, students, and academicians said the ministry of electronics and IT said in a statement on Tuesday. On August 16 this year, the ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) had invited applications for the empanelment of agencies to provide AI compute and cloud services.A total of 19 companies submitted proposals for the government's Rs. 10,000 crore GPU tender, with participation from cloud service providers, managed service providers, and data centre service providers, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) said in a statement on Tuesday. Those in the offing for the ambitious project include top companies such as Jio Platforms, Tata Communications, CtrlS Datacenters, E2E Networks, Sify Digital Services, and Yotta Data Services. This initiative aims to make available 10,000 GPUs to support India's AI mission, benefiting startups, researchers, students, and academicians, the statement added. The other bidders include CloudThat Technologies, CMS Computers, Cyfuture India, Hostin Services, I2k2 Networks, Ishan Infotech, Locuz Enterprise Solutions, Orient Technologies, NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies, Path Infotech, Shezar Web Technologies, Unicloud Labs, and Vensysco Technologies. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, through IndiaAI Independent Business Division (IBD), published a Request for Empanelment (RFE) on August 16 this year. The RFE invited applications for the empanelment of agencies to provide AI compute and cloud services.

IndiaAI Mission: Jio, Tata Submit Bids To Offer AI Compute

The selected companies will be empanelled as agencies to provide AI compute services to startups, researchers, students, and academicians The electronics and IT ministry (MeitY) said that 19 service providers have submitted bids to provide artificial intelligence (AI) compute and cloud services under the INR 10,738 Cr IndiaAI Mission. The entities that participated in the bidding round included cloud service providers, managed service providers, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and data centre service providers, including Jio Platforms, Tata Communications, Sify Digital Services, Yotta, CMS Computers India, among others. CloudThat Technologies, Cyfuture India, I2k2 Networks, Ishan Infotech, Orient Technologies Limited, NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies, Path Infotech, Shezar Web Technologies, Unicloud Labs and Vensysco Technologies were the other bidders. The selected companies will be empanelled as agencies to provide AI compute services to startups, researchers, students, and academicians. Under the IndiaAI compute pillar, the Centre plans to build infrastructure comprising 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) in partnership with private players. In a statement, MeitY said that the pre-bid meeting in August 2024 saw participation from 50 service providers. Subsequently, November 28 was set as the deadline for the bid submission process and the bids were opened on December 2. Now, a technical evaluation committee will evaluate the submitted bids based on the eligibility and technical criteria specified in the request for empanelment (RFE) document. Afterwards, the eligible bidders will be directed to present their proposed solutions before the panel. Only then will the "technically qualified bidders" be allowed to participate in the commercial bids. The ministry also said that empanelment will be valid for a period of 36 months. There will, however, be an option to extend the timeline for an additional 12 months based on mutually agreed terms, it added. The INR 10,738 Cr IndiaAI Mission was approved by the union cabinet earlier this year. It focusses on seven areas - computing, foundational models, datasets, applications, skill development, startups, and safe AI. It aims to foster the homegrown GenAI ecosystem via a public-private partnership (PPP) model. In May this year, MeitY secretary S Krishnan said that domestic companies will be preferred when it comes to adding GPU power approved under the Mission. At the time, Krishnan had said that AI compute capacity is expected to be made available to startups and researchers in the next 18-24 months, with the first set of use cases expected by the end of the financial year 2024-25 (FY25). Afterwards in September, Krishnan also said that the government might look at viability gap funding (VGF) to create more "compute capacity" once the existing 10,000 GPU target has been achieved.