India backs Sarvam to build homegrown AI models (opens the source in a new tab)
- Government-backed start-up Sarvam is central to India's bid to avoid becoming a "digital colony" reliant on US and Chinese AI, the FT reports. A funding round in August valued it at $1.5bn.
- Rather than chase the hardest problems, it builds cheaper models in Indian languages for routine work such as customer calls at banks and insurers, and is training a far larger model of about 1tn parameters.
- It still depends on US chips for its servers.
- $1.5bn
- Sarvam valuation, August
Why it matters If AI becomes the base layer for banking, support and public services, who owns the models matters as much as who runs the cloud, as this week's Microsoft outage showed. A cheap local option also keeps more AI spending at home.
Other side Sarvam's spending is tiny next to US rivals, and foreign giants are giving Indian consumers premium AI free for long periods. A home model running on imported chips may reduce dependence, not end it.