India's Ambitious Plan to Develop Indigenous AI Model and GPU Within 3-5 Years

India to Launch its Own Secure & Affordable Indigenous AI Model: Ashwini Vaishnaw

The Union Minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw said that "Our Prime Minister's economic thinking is very inclusive. He believes in making modern technology accessible to everyone to ensure the people at the bottom of the pyramid are economically empowered." The AI model is beginning with the computation facility of roughly 10000 GPUs. Soon the remaining 8693 GPUs will be added. It will largely benefit researchers, students & developers in the beginning. The Technical partners who are participating in the mission have expressed a lot of confidence in the ability of the mission to deliver its objective of democratising access to computing & that too at a very competitive rate. Compared to global models computation costing 2.5 to 3 dollars per hour usage, India's AI Model computation will cost less than less than 100 rupees per hour after 40% government subsidy. The attractive half yearly & annual plans will further make it more affordable.

Local Foundational AI Platform Expected In 10 Months: Ashwini Vaishnaw

According to the IndianAI Mission website, the Centre is also inviting applications from Indian startups, researchers, and entrepreneurs to collaborate on building foundational AI models trained on Indian datasets Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has reportedly said that India may develop graphics processing units (GPUs) within the next 3-5 years as part of India AI Mission. He added that a local foundational AI platform is expected to be available in 10 months. According to PTI, Vaishnaw stated that the government will provide 18,000 high-end GPU-based compute facilities for AI development in the coming days, with India's own AI platform expected within 10 months. According to the IndianAI Mission website, the Centre is also inviting applications from Indian startups, researchers, and entrepreneurs to collaborate on building foundational AI models trained on Indian datasets. "We are working on multiple, actually three options, where we take a chipset which is at some reasonable level available in open source or available as a licensed thing, and then build upon that to build our own GPU. That's the approach the entire world has followed and that approach will be able to give us India's own GPU in the time frame of three to five years," Vaishnaw said. GPUs were initially used for processing multimedia content, including gaming and video processing, due to their high computing power. However, with the surge in AI demand globally, their necessity has grown exponentially. US chipmaker Nvidia currently dominates the market with over 80% share. The minister stated that several startups have successfully developed AI models, though on a smaller scale compared to ChatGPT. Additionally, Indian Railways has leveraged AI to improve the confirmed ticket rate by 27%. "We already embarked 18,000 GPUs, very high-end GPUs, and out of that, 10,000 are already available. So this 18,000 compute power will be rolled out in a couple of days. The tender process got completed last week, and in another couple of days, 3-4 days, this will be rolled out," Vaishnaw said. He said that high end computing infrastructure is the basic requirement to develop artificial intelligence models which can be bought by those who have deep pockets but the government has put in a mechanism, where people can access computing infrastructure at low cost. "The researchers, startups, academicians, colleges, IITs, all of them can have access to this compute power, and they can start foundational models," Vaishnaw said. He added that numerous research papers contain mathematical algorithms, which companies like China's DeepSeek have leveraged to enhance efficiency in the AI development process.

India To Build Foundational AI Model In Next 10 Months: IT Minister

The ambitious timeline comes barely days after the union government floated a proposal to build an indigenously-designed and developed foundational AI model Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has reportedly said that India will build its own foundational artificial intelligence (AI) model in the next 10 months. As per news agency PTI, Vaishnaw said that the government will make available 18,000 high-end GPU-based compute facilities for AI development to entities across the country in the next couple of days, which will enable the development of the AI model. He added that 10,000 GPUs are already available while the remaining 8,000 compute power will be rolled out in the next few days as the tender process for the same was completed last week. The ambitious timeline comes barely days after the union government floated a proposal to build an indigenously-designed and developed foundational AI model. The IT Minister also projected that the country would be able to develop its own high-end graphics processing unit (GPU), in the next three to five years. "We are working on multiple, actually three options, where we take a chipset which is at some reasonable level available in open source or available as a licensed thing, and then build upon that to build our own GPU. That's the approach the entire world has followed and that approach will be able to give us India's own GPU in the time frame of three to five years," Vaishnaw said reportedly. Vaishnaw also noted that high-end computing infrastructure was the basic requirement to develop AI models, adding that the Centre has instituted a mechanism to ensure people can access computing infrastructure at low cost. "The researchers, startups, academicians, colleges, IITs, all of them can have access to this compute power, and they can start foundational models," Vaishnaw reportedly said. This follows the minister last week announcing that India would build its own large language model (LLM). Quickly afterwards, Centre's flagship IndiaAI Mission floated a proposal inviting applications from Indian startups, researchers, and entrepreneurs to collaborate on building foundational AI models trained on Indian datasets. Under the proposal, the Centre plans to offer equity-based funding as well as compute credits for the selected entity(s) that will undertake this task. The project will look to develop a scalable foundational AI model, which should be trained on diverse datasets and demonstrate capabilities to address India-specific challenges and opportunities across sectors.

India may get own GPU in 3-5 years, 18,000 AI servers to be rolled out soon: Ashwini Vaishnaw

India may be able to develop its own high-end computing chipset, known as GPUs, in the next 3-5 years while a local foundational AI platform is expected in 10 months, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday. During a Budget Roundtable 2025 organised by India Today & Business Today, Vaishnaw said that the government will make available 18,000 high-end GPU-based compute facilities for AI development to entities in the country in the next couple of days and expects India's own AI platform within 10 months. "We are working on multiple, actually three options, where we take a chipset which is at some reasonable level available in open source or available as a licensed thing, and then build upon that to build our own GPU. That's the approach the entire world has followed and that approach will be able to give us India's own GPU in the time frame of three to five years," Vaishnaw said. GPUs (graphics processing units) were earlier used for processing multimedia content where a lot of computing processes were required like gaming, video processing etc. However, the demand for GPUs has skyrocketed after massive demand for AI across the world and US chip company Nvidia dominates the market with over 80 per cent share. The minister said that several start-ups have developed very efficiently, though small compared to ChatGPT, AI models and Indian Railways improved confirmed ticket rate by 27 per cent using AI models. "We already embarked 18,000 GPUs, very high-end GPUs, and out of that, 10,000 are already available. So this 18,000 compute power will be rolled out in a couple of days. The tender process got completed last week, and in another couple of days, 3-4 days, this will be rolled out," Vaishnaw said. He said that high end computing infrastructure is the basic requirement to develop artificial intelligence models which can be bought by those who have deep pockets but the government has put in a mechanism, where people can access computing infrastructure at low cost. "The researchers, startups, academicians, colleges, IITs, all of them can have access to this compute power, and they can start foundational models," Vaishnaw said. When asked about when will India have its own AI foundational model, Vaishnaw said "10 months is the outer limit." He said that there are many research papers, basically mathematical algorithms which, for example, Chinese AI company DeepSeek has used for making the entire process very efficient. "Many of our researchers and startups are also studying some of those papers. There are some papers of 2003 and 2005 which basically tell you how to do a lot of good engineering on the process," Vaishnaw said. During the interaction, the minister countered allegations levelled by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and said that licence raj from 1950-1990 killed the entire manufacturing and production ecosystem in the country and now the Make in India program of the government has been a big success. Vaishnaw said under the government mobile manufacturing segment under the Make in India has created 12 lakh direct and indirect jobs. To explain the level of quality and precision achieved by Indian electronic companies he showed a metallic where no line was visible with naked eyes but it consisted of various pieces joined together with a high level of precision. He said that it took 3 years for a leading Indian company to achieve high level of precision that is required by a vendor for supplying parts for manufacturing high-end mobile phones of Apple and Samsung. The minister said that India now manufactures several products and components that are used in the mobile phone industry including chargers, battery packs, mechanics of all types, USB cables, keypads, display assembly, camera module, lithium ion cells, speaker and microphone, vibrator motor etc. "We lost four decades from 1950 to 1990 where the entire manufacturing and production ecosystem was killed by the licensed permit raj. "First opening happened in 1990. Then when (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee ji came, he also did a major opening. After that, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji has opened up many sectors through his Make in India programme. "I wish we had started when China started in 1979 but never too late, we are doing good in Make in India," Vaishnaw said.