Startups, researchers, application developers and others can now access 14,000 GPUs (graphics processing units) on the IndiaAI Compute Portal, with 4,000 more in the pipeline, says union electronics and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

The minister adds that the government is currently evaluating 67 applications for an Indian foundational model, of which 22 are large language models.

“Every quarter, we will add more GPUs, a significant portion of the common compute facility will be dedicated to building India's own foundation model,” says Ashwini.

“I have told the team, Pick up the mature applications, and at least select a few of them, maybe three or five, so that we start working on it,” adds Ashwini.

Vaishnaw also launched AI Kosha, the IndiaAI Datasets Platform, among other initiatives under the IndiaAI Mission, a year after it kicked off with a Rs 10,000 crore funding.

In order to facilitate model training, Vaishnaw stated that AI Kosha provides non-personal data from many ministries and departments, such as the agriculture department, weather forecasts, logistics, and information from Bhashini, the government platform for translating Indian languages.

Additionally, private companies are being approached by the government to provide non-personal data for the platform.

An AI Competency Framework was launched for the capacity building of civil servants, as was iGOT AI within the iGOT Karmayogi government capacity building platform to recommend courses tailored to civil servants' roles. Further, 27 AI data labs are being set up in tier-2 and tier-3 locations, announces the IT minister

The GPU facility will be available for Rs 67 per GPU hour.

“The way we sent a mission to the moon at a fraction of the cost at which the developed world did, we'll have our foundational model also at a fraction of the cost that some of the rich world countries have done,” says Vaishnaw.