India's AI Mission Receives 18,000 GPU Bids in Second Round, Boosting Indigenous AI Development

Govt gets bids offering 18,000 GPUs in Round-2 of IndiaAI Mission tender

In the second round of IndiaAI's GPU tender, bids offering 18,000 GPUs were received, with 15,000 expected to qualify. Seven firms are shortlisted, including AWS and Google Cloud partners. The government aims to boost India's AI capabilities and local language model development under its Rs 10,000-crore mission.The Centre has received bids proposing to offer 18,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) in the second round of the IndiaAI GPU tender, and expects 15,000 GPUs to finally be offered following technical qualifications and commercial bid-opening, IndiaAI CEO Abhishek Singh said. The first round of the GPU tender has already concluded. In that round, New Delhi is offering 15,000 GPUs on subsidised rates to the country's startups, academics and research organisations. Sunil Gupta, cofounder and chief executive, Yotta Data Services, told ET that while the company had already offered 8,192 Nvidia H100 GPUs and 1,024 Nvidia L40S GPUs in first round of empanelment, it has now proposed Nvidia Blackwell B200s in this second round of empanelment. IndiaAI Mission has shortlisted seven companies -- including partners of Amazon Web Service (AWS), Oracle and Google Cloud -- for technical evaluation under the second round of the GPU tender, ET had reported on May 7. The Mission has invited the firms -- Netmagic IT Services (now known as NTT Global Data Centers & Cloud Infrastructure India, or NTT GDC India), Cyfuture India, Sify Digital Services, Vensysco Technologies, Locuz Enterprise Solutions, Yotta Data Services, and Ishan Infotech -- for technical presentation of their proposals on May 14. There are already more than 230 applications to India AI for building India-specific large language models (LLMs) / small language models (SLMs) and more than 30,000 GPU requests are in the pipeline. "The bid submission is now open for third continuous empanelment," Singh said, indicating that the third round of the GPU tender is now open for accepting bids. Some companies are planning to bid higher versions of GPUs in the third round. Piyush Somani, founding chief executive of Cloud company ESDS Software Solution told ET, "We are in the process of acquiring the Nvidia Blackwell series of GPUs -- B200 and B300. Once those are deployed in our data centres, we will be submitting the bid for the third round of the IndiaAI Mission's GPU tender which is now open." "We won't be participating with the older generation GPUs," Somani who is also president, Cloud Computing Innovation Council of India, added. Mumbai-headquartered Cloudstrats Technologies who had participated in the pre-bid meeting were interested in bidding for the second round of the tender and had requested IndiaAI for an extension. The tender inviting authority did not grant the extension. Cloudstrats is however going to participate in future empanelments, it said. The company told ET, "With established partnerships with hyperscalers like AWS and Microsoft Azure, we are well-positioned and experienced to deliver scalable AI infrastructure covering high-performance compute, secure storage, and cloud-native services." India had formally launched its Rs 10,000-crore India AI Mission in January, under which against the target of 10,000 GPUs outlined in the IndiaAI compute pillar, empanelled bidders have offered 14,517 GPUs at L1 rates. As part of the Mission, the government is also incentivising the development of local language models built by academia and industry with investment capital and other support. The move is aimed at building up India's AI prowess.

MeitY shortlists 7 firms in second round of AI Mission GPU tender

Under the IndiaAI Mission, seven firms -- including AWS, Oracle, and Google Cloud partners -- were shortlisted for the second round of GPU tenders, aiming to procure 15,000 GPUs. Technical presentations are set for May 14. This initiative supports India's Rs 10,000-crore push to enhance AI infrastructure and local language model development.IndiaAI Mission has shortlisted seven companies -- including partners of Amazon Web Service (AWS), Oracle and Google Cloud -- for technical evaluation under the second round of the graphics processing units (GPU) tender, people aware of the development told ET. The Mission has invited the firms -- Netmagic IT Services (now known as NTT Global Data Centers & Cloud Infrastructure India, or NTT GDC India), Cyfuture India, Sify Digital Services, Vensysco Technologies, Locuz Enterprise Solutions, Yotta Data Services, and Ishan Infotech -- for technical presentation of their proposals on May 14. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) expects to get 15,000 GPUs in this round. Vensysco and Locuz confirmed that they are partnering AWS. Ishan Infotech is an Oracle partner and NTT-Netmagic is a Google Cloud partner in India -- although details of their partnership for this bid are not known. "Vensysco's consortium partner will be Appsquadz Software, along with AWS," said Vikash Kumar Dubey, managing director of Vensysco Technologies. "We will offer 2,300 GPUs: 2,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, 100 AWS Trainium 1 GPUs, and 200 AWS Inferentia 2 GPUs. We are offering an additional 1,300 GPUs this time compared to last time's 1,000 GPUs," he told ET. Locuz, which is now owned by US IT infrastructure firm SHI International, had emerged as one of the five lowest (L1) bidders in the first round. Also Read: IndiaAI GPU tender: Lowest bidders receive AI workloads "Our new bid is different from the first one," Uttam Majumdar, founder of Locuz and senior vice president of business and services at SHI, told ET. He did not entertain any further queries. Yotta and Vensysco had emerged as L2 bidders among others in the first round. In that round, both Locuz and Vensysco had made similar offers of 1,000 GPUs, including 700 Nvidia H100 GPUs, 200 AWS Inferentia 2 GPUs, and 100 AWS Trainium 1 GPUs. Anuj Bairathi, chief executive of Cyfuture India, told ET that the company has placed purchase orders for 1,184 GPUs. These include Nvidia H100 GPUs, L40S GPUs, and A100 GPUs, AMD's MI300 GPUs, and MI325 GPUs, and Intel's Gaudi 2 and Gaudi 3 GPUs. Cyfuture is a MeitY-empanelled cloud service provider who has built its fully integrated AI platform, Cyfuture.ai. The company did not qualify technically in the first round of the GPU tender. IndiaAI, NTT GDC India, Google Cloud, Sify, Yotta, Ishan, and Oracle did not respond to ET's requests for a comment. GPUs are a coveted resource worldwide with countries like the US imposing export restrictions on advanced AI chips including GPUs, to protect its AI leadership and national security. India had formally launched its Rs 10,000-crore India AI Mission in January, under which against the target of 10,000 GPUs outlined in the IndiaAI compute pillar, empanelled bidders have offered 14,517 GPUs at L1 rates. As part of the Mission, the government is also incentivising the development of local language models built by academia and industry with investment capital and other support. The move is aimed at building up India's AI prowess. "The bid submission is now open for third continuous empanelment," IndiaAI's website said, indicating that the third round of the GPU tender is now open for accepting bids. Also Read: Reliance Jio, CtrlS, other AI Mission GPU L1 bidders set to get workloads

IndiaAI Mission: Govt Shortlists 7 Companies For Second Round Of GPU Tender

These companies are invited by the IndiaAI Mission for the technical presentation of their proposals on May 14 The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has reportedly shortlisted seven companies, including Amazon Web Service (AWS), Oracle and Google Cloud for the second round of graphics processing units (GPU) tenders under the IndiaAI Mission. Among the companies shortlisted also include Sify Digital Services, Netmagic IT Services, Vensysco Technologies, Cyfuture India, Yotta Data Services, Locuz Enterprise Solutions and Ishan Infotech, ET reported. The report further said that MeitY is looking to add 15K GPUs from the second round. Further, these companies have been invited by the IndiaAI Mission for the technical presentation of their proposals on May 14. As per the report, Vensysco and Locuz are joining hands with AWS, while Ishan Infotech is partnered with Oracle and NTT-Netmagic is a Google Cloud partner in India. However, details of their partnership for this bid remain undisclosed. This development comes shortly after reports revealed that the electronics ministry would offer incentives to startups such as Sarvam AI, Soket AI Labs, Gnani.ai and Gan.ai for building frontier AI models under the mission.

IndiaAI Mission: Centre Receives Bids Offering 18K GPUs In Second Round IndiaAI Mission: Centre Receives Bids Offering 18K GPUs In Second Round

The shortlisted companies are likely to go for the technical presentation of their proposals on May 14 For the second round of graphics processing unit (GPU) tender under the IndiaAI mission, the central government has reportedly received bids to propose 18,000 GPUs but 15,000 will be offered after the entire process. An ET report, citing IndiaAI CEO Abhishek Singh, 15K GPUs will be offered after checking technical qualifications and commercial bid-opening. In this round, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has shortlisted seven companies - Sify Digital Services, Netmagic IT Services, Vensysco Technologies, Cyfuture India, Yotta Data Services, Locuz Enterprise Solutions and Ishan Infotech. Notably, some of these companies are partners of Amazon Web Service (AWS), Oracle and Google Cloud. Vensysco and Locuz are joining hands with AWS, while Ishan Infotech is partnered with Oracle and NTT-Netmagic is a Google Cloud partner in India. The shortlisted companies are likely to go for the technical presentation of their proposals tomorrow (May 14). The IndiaAI mission will add 15,000 GPUs through procurement and supply which will take the total number of GPUs to 29,000. GPU is a specialised chip that renders graphics and images by performing rapid mathematical calculations that are needed in processing AI. The Union Cabinet last year approved the IndiaAI Mission with an allocation of INR 10,372 Cr in the next five years, aiming to foster innovation in the homegrown AI ecosystem and implementing the Mission's vision via a public-private partnership (PPP) model. It covers initiatives such as IndiaAI Compute Capacity, IndiaAI Innovation Centre (IAIC), IndiaAI Datasets Platform, IndiaAI Application Development Initiative, IndiaAI FutureSkills, IndiaAI Startup Financing, and Safe & Trusted AI. Centre's Push To Scale AI Compute Capacity IndiaAI Compute Capacity envisions building a cutting-edge, scalable AI computing infrastructure by deploying more than 10,000 GPUs through PPP model. The Centre is looking to build affordable AI infrastructure to support startups, academics, and research agencies. "The government is actively shaping an AI ecosystem where computing power, GPUs, and research opportunities are accessible at an affordable cost," said MeitY in a statement last year. Hailing IndiaAI's vision, the ministry said that the key focus of this mission is the development of a high-end common computing facility equipped with 18,693 GPUs. The ministry underlined that this capacity is nearly nine times that of the open-source AI model DeepSeek and about two-thirds of what ChatGPT operates on. Under the mission, the government also eased the eligibility criteria for the procurement of GPUs to allow more participation of smaller companies and startups. It was reported in January that MeitY received offers for 20,000 GPUs which was twice of what was initially proposed for empanelling companies. After that, the Centre selected ten tech giants for the final bidding process to procure 10,000 GPUs including Jio Platforms and Tata Communications. Besides, the IndiaAI Mission in March received around 120 applications to build AI foundation models in the second round of bidding.

IndiaAI Mission Gets 18,000 Bids for GPUs for Indigenous LLMs

The Indian government has received bids proposing 18,000 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) for the second round of GPU tenders under the aegis of the IndiaAI Mission, as per an Economic Times report. From these bids, around 15,000 will be offered after checking technical qualifications and commercial bid openings, IndiaAI Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Abhishek Singh stated. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has shortlisted seven companies - namely, Netmagic IT Services, Vensysco Technologies, Cyfuture India, Yotta Data Services, Locuz Enterprise Solutions, Ishan Infotech, and Sify Digital Services - which will likely deliver the technical presentations of their proposals today. Interestingly, a few of these companies are partners of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Oracle. For instance, Vensysco and Locuz are joining hands with AWS, Ishan Infotech has partnered with Oracle, and Netmagic IT Services is a partner of Google Cloud. Furthermore, the IndiaAI Mission has received more than 230 applications for building India-specific large language models (LLMs) and small language models (SLMs). In addition, upwards of 30,000 GPU requests are in the pipeline. Elsewhere, Singh indicated that bidding is open for the third round of the GPU tender, and apparently, some companies want to bid for more sophisticated GPU versions in that round. The Centre had announced the IndiaAI Mission in March last year, with a financial rollout of Rs 10,000 crore in order to promote the research and development of AI in India. This budget's aim is to build "programs and partnerships across the public and private sectors", Union Minister for Commerce & Industry and Consumer Affairs, Piyush Goyal had announced at the National Media Centre in Delhi. The Mission stands on seven pillars, namely, Specifically with reference to GPUs, the Centre sanctioned more than Rs 4,500 crore for the IndiaAI Mission's Compute Capacity initiative. However, the Takshashila Institution released an AI Governance report last month, which claims that the IndiaAI Mission's compute capacity runs the risk of being underutilised. The report divulges that even though the Indian Government's aim is to incentivise startups and build indigenous AI models, not a lot of such projects will be able to fulfil the criteria to receive government-approved subsidies. In addition, the slow pace of bureaucratic processes involved in accessing resources under the IndiaAI Mission can also potentially lead to the compute capacity's underutilisation. Notably, the Takshashila report states that the European Union (EU) is the best region on the globe when it comes to transparency and accountability. In comparison, India fares last in this category among all the geographical regions reported on, which also includes the US and China.