A globally competitive homegrown Indian AI model is set to be released by next year, according to venture capital firm Lightspeed.
India’s sovereign AI platform Sarvam AI is planning a 1-trillion parameter model in the next six months. While the biggest models from the US’s Anthropic PBC and OpenAI and China’s Moonshot and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. are larger, that progress shows Indian contenders’ ambition.
“That will be a very competitive model anywhere globally,” Hemant Mohapatra, a Lightspeed partner, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “We’ve got to build the best models in performance, cost and usability.”
Lightspeed was an early backer of Indian unicorns like Sarvam AI and Emergent, as well as other AI startups like Portkey and Composio. About 80% to 90% of the VC’s deals in India are now in the AI space, compared with just about 20% three to four years ago, according to Mohapatra.
Mohapatra, who previously also worked at Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, said India’s unique challenges mean it needs custom, homegrown AI services that can’t just be “bolted on” by software solutions built by companies abroad. “You have to build something locally to be able to serve something locally,” he said.
According to Mohapatra, a majority of its portfolio companies is building AI applications, compared with a previous focus on AI infrastructure. “The value has shifted up,” he said.
Language is a key challenge for AI rollout in India, even with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s AI democratization ambitions, as the country’s vast population speaks nearly two dozen official languages and more than a hundred dialects.
Affordability, Mohapatra said, is another consideration. “India needs to be serviced at scale at a lower price point,” he said.
Indian users are offered some of the lowest rates for popular AI platforms in the world. OpenAI currently offers a 399 rupee (under $5) plan in India, while Cursor has launched a 649 rupee offering.
–With assistance from Naman Tandon.
