Bhavish Aggarwal's AI startup, Krutrim, has launched an AI lab and committed to open sourcing its AI models, aiming to enhance AI capabilities tailored for India.
Aggarwal announced a significant investment plan of ₹2,000 crore in Krutrim immediately, with an additional ₹10,000 crore expected by next year, primarily from his family office.
The funding will consist of both equity and debt, with plans to raise an additional $1.15 billion from outside investors by next year.
This initiative comes in response to the rising popularity of China's DeepSeek, which has introduced a powerful and cost-effective open-source AI model, prompting India to develop its own generative AI model.
Krutrim's efforts align with India's broader AI ambitions under the IndiaAI Mission, which focuses on democratizing computing access and enhancing data quality.
As part of this mission, India aims to provide the most affordable compute power for high-end chips for generative AI at less than $1 per hour.
The government is prioritizing the safety and ethical deployment of AI, with plans to establish an AI Safety Institute to ensure responsible development.
Krutrim's research focuses on improving AI capabilities for Indian languages, addressing issues related to data scarcity and cultural context.
The newly launched Krutrim-2 model supports responses in English and 22 Indian languages, featuring a 128,000-token context window for better handling of complex conversations.
To benchmark Indic language performance, Krutrim has developed 'BharatBench,' a unique evaluation framework that addresses the lack of global benchmarks for Indic LLM performance.
These developments from Krutrim follow claims from DeepSeek regarding breakthroughs in AI efficiency, stirring reactions in the tech industry.
Aggarwal's announcements highlight the competitive landscape for AI development, especially in light of advancements made by Chinese company DeepSeek.
