Free services by global AI firms are a challenge: Sarvam AI co-founder

Sovereign AI can grow to the next level if it is used at a large scale; however, free services by global companies are a challenge, said Vivek Raghavan, Co-founder of AI startup Sarvam.

Sovereign AI is an AI platform developed indigenously from scratch using its own datasets, which enables nations to reduce reliance on foreign technology firms and protect their national interests.

Notably, OpenAI is offering access to ChatGPT for free, while Reliance Jio, in partnership with Google, is offering free access to the AI platform Gemini.

Speaking at a session in the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, Raghavan said, "We are going to put some models out there which are world-class in their category. We have been doing that over the past few weeks, and we hope to do some more. But I think the important thing is that these models can actually reach the next level only when there is usage at a large scale".

He observed that one of the challenges is that Sarvam AI was looking to compete with free models.

"In the real world, nothing is free, so if all the frontier models are available for free in any other industry, it will probably be called dumping, but here... that is something that we have to figure out," Raghavan said.

He said the US and China are far ahead of India, and that is a fact "we have to accept."

The Sarvam AI co-founder said India needs to decide whether it wants to become a digital colony or join the nations that own AI technology.

He emphasised the importance of ensuring that Indian models are used at a large scale.

This month, Sarvam has made a series of announcements, including an orchestration stack, Arya; sovereign AI partnerships with multiple states; Bulbul V3, a text-to-speech model for natural, production-ready Indian-language voices; Sarvam Vision; Sarvam Audio, an audio extension of the 3B-parameter Sarvam language model trained on English and 22 Indian languages; and Sarvam Dub, an AI dubbing model that helps creators extend the reach of their content.

(With inputs from PTI)