Global AI race: India to build own foundational models

18,693 GPUS TO POWER COMPUTE FACILITY

- NARESH BISWANI

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday outlined its global artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions with plans to develop its own foundational AI model, aiming to compete with existing models such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek R1. As part of its AI strategy, India announced the creation of a common compute facility powered by 18,693 GPUs, which will be made available at affordable rates for startups and researchers.

The announcement comes as Chinese company DeepSeek has gained prominence, with its AI model surpassing ChatGPT as the top-ranked free app on Apple's App Store. The move also signals India's intention to challenge the dominance of US-based AI firms, particularly OpenAI.

IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated that India is committed to building a world-class foundational model capable of competing with the best AI models globally. The government has invited proposals to develop AI models that align with India's linguistic and cultural context, ensuring the datasets are locally relevant and free from biases.

A foundational AI model serves as the base for various AI applications and requires significant computational resources. The government's common compute facility will be made available at a cost significantly lower than global benchmarks.