Indian IT firms take a divergent AI view

Most companies rely on internal data sets that are readily available to them, helping them build smaller models

- Jas Bardia

India's largest IT services companies are divided when it comes to selling their AI solutions.

Infosys Ltd and Tech Mahindra Ltd are building their own small AI models to help clients save costs, while Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Wipro Ltd and HCL Technologies Ltd want to build on foundational AI tools that are already present in the market.

The size of an AI model depends on the data that is fed into them. Small AI models are trained on smaller data sets, whereas larger models, better known as large language models (LLMs), are trained on greater amounts of data. As small language models (SLMs) are trained on lesser data, they can perform lesser but more specialized functions compared with larger AI tools.