India Explores Development of Sovereign LLM with Sarvam AI
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Indian Govt, Sarvam AI Discuss Building India's Sovereign LLM
Ashwini Vaishnaw, union minister of Railways and Information & Broadcasting, Electronics and Information Technology, posted on X that he discussed with the Sarvam AI team about options for building India's sovereign LLM. He added that there is a huge potential for solving population scale problems using Indian language models. Sarvam AI is a startup dedicated to building generative AI models and solutions. In October, Sarvam AI also announced a partnership with Infosys to build small language models for Infosys Topaz Baking SLM and Infosys Topaz ITOpsSLM systems. Sarvam AI also released Sarvam-1, the first AI model optimised for Indian languages. Besides English, the model supports ten languages, namely Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu. The model outperformed Google's Gemma-2 and Meta's Llama-3 on certain benchmarks. In December last year, NITI Aayog signed a Statement of Intent with Indian AI startup Sarvam AI to build a pilot for an Enterprise Reasoning Engine (ERE) atop the National Data and Analytics Portal (NDAP). This initiative aims to improve the accessibility and usability of data for efficient decision-making in government and other sectors. This is said to provide users with a 'seamless natural language interface' to manage structured and unstructured data. Speaking on this development, a lot of users on X said that Sarvam AI is the only AI startup for India that can build such models. "If there is one company in India that has the highest potential to build an IndicLLM then it has to be," said Raj Dabre, a prominent researcher at NICT in Kyoto, adjunct faculty at IIT Madras and a visiting professor at IIT Bombay. A few months ago, The Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) announced a partnership with Meta to introduce an AI Assistant built by Sarvam AI for the Skill India Mission. They established five Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) at National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs) in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Jodhpur, Chennai, and Kanpur.
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Indian Government, Sarvam AI Discuss Building India's Sovereign LLM
Ashwini Vaishnaw, union minister of Railways and Information & Broadcasting, Electronics and Information Technology, posted on X that he discussed with the Sarvam AI team about options for building India's sovereign LLM. He added that there is a huge potential for solving population scale problems using Indian language models. Sarvam AI is a startup dedicated to building generative AI models and solutions. In October, Sarvam AI also announced a partnership with Infosys to build small language models for Infosys Topaz Baking SLM and Infosys Topaz ITOpsSLM systems. Sarvam AI also released Sarvam-1, the first AI model optimised for Indian languages. Besides English, the model supports ten languages, namely Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu. The model outperformed Google's Gemma-2 and Meta's Llama-3 on certain benchmarks. In December last year, NITI Aayog signed a Statement of Intent with Indian AI startup Sarvam AI to build a pilot for an Enterprise Reasoning Engine (ERE) atop the National Data and Analytics Portal (NDAP). This initiative aims to improve the accessibility and usability of data for efficient decision-making in government and other sectors. This is said to provide users with a 'seamless natural language interface' to manage structured and unstructured data. Speaking on this development, a lot of users on X said that Sarvam AI is the only AI startup for India that can build such models. "If there is one company in India that has the highest potential to build an IndicLLM then it has to be," said Raj Dabre, a prominent researcher at NICT in Kyoto, adjunct faculty at IIT Madras and a visiting professor at IIT Bombay. A few months ago, The Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) announced a partnership with Meta to introduce an AI Assistant built by Sarvam AI for the Skill India Mission. They established five Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) at National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs) in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Jodhpur, Chennai, and Kanpur.
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The Indian government discusses building a sovereign Large Language Model (LLM) with Sarvam AI, highlighting the potential for solving population-scale problems using Indian language models.
Indian Government Explores Sovereign LLM Development
In a significant move towards technological sovereignty, the Indian government has initiated discussions with Sarvam AI, a prominent Indian startup, to explore options for building India's own sovereign Large Language Model (LLM). This development was announced by Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Railways, Information & Broadcasting, and Electronics and Information Technology, through a post on the social media platform X
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.Sarvam AI's Expertise and Achievements
Sarvam AI has established itself as a leader in developing generative AI models tailored for Indian languages. The company recently released Sarvam-1, an AI model optimized for Indian languages, which supports English and ten Indian languages including Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu. Notably, Sarvam-1 has outperformed international models like Google's Gemma-2 and Meta's Llama-3 on certain benchmarks
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.Collaborative Initiatives and Partnerships
The startup has been actively engaging in various collaborative efforts:
- Partnership with Infosys to develop small language models for Infosys Topaz systems
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. - Collaboration with NITI Aayog to build an Enterprise Reasoning Engine (ERE) for the National Data and Analytics Portal (NDAP), aimed at enhancing data accessibility and usability for efficient decision-making
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. - Partnership with the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and Meta to introduce an AI Assistant for the Skill India Mission
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Potential Impact and Expert Opinion
The development of a sovereign LLM is seen as having immense potential for addressing population-scale problems using Indian language models. This initiative has garnered support from the tech community, with many experts viewing Sarvam AI as the most promising candidate for building an Indian LLM
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.Raj Dabre, a prominent researcher at NICT in Kyoto and faculty at IIT Madras and IIT Bombay, expressed strong confidence in Sarvam AI's capabilities, stating, "If there is one company in India that has the highest potential to build an IndicLLM then it has to be [Sarvam AI]"
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.Broader Implications for India's AI Ecosystem
This initiative aligns with India's broader efforts to strengthen its AI capabilities and technological self-reliance. The government's engagement with Sarvam AI signifies a strategic move towards developing AI solutions that cater specifically to India's linguistic diversity and unique challenges.
The establishment of five Centres of Excellence in Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) at National Skill Training Institutes across India further underscores the government's commitment to fostering innovation and skill development in emerging technologies
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.As India continues to invest in its AI ecosystem, the development of a sovereign LLM could potentially position the country as a significant player in the global AI landscape, particularly in the domain of language technologies tailored for diverse linguistic environments.
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