The world’s largest chip maker (graphics processing units), on Thursday forged a series of partnerships with domestic tech and telecom firms, to build large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the country. The tie-ups will be beneficial for both sides. For Nvidia, it opens up a large market like India for its GPUs, which are key to building AI models. Similarly, for firms like Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Communications, Infosys, Wipro, and TechM, with whom partnerships have been announced or expanded, will be able to make several models suited for domestic needs from sectors ranging from agriculture to education.
The biggest announcement made by the global chip maker was with RIL to build out an AI computing infrastructure as well as an innovation centre in the country. A new major data centre by RIL will use the latest Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chips.
It also launched its Hindi-language AI model, which will produce AI using Indian infrastructure, data and workforce. TechM will be the first Indian firm to use the Hindi language model.
“In the future, India is going to be the country that will export AI. It has the fundamental ingredients… AI, data and AI infrastructure, and it has a large population of users that ultimately creates the AI flywheel,” Jensen Huang, Nvidia Corp’s founder and CEO said, while speaking at the Nvidia AI summit. He said that India is set to witness 20 times growth in compute capacity and will soon be exporting impactful AI solutions.
“One piece that I believe is important is that for India and Indians, we have to repeat a Jio for intelligence to be really affordable and available to the common people. Towards this, it is important that we design and build infrastructure so that to use AI, our customers don’t have to change their phones and computers,” Mukesh Ambani, CMD RIL said. Ambani and Huang later also had a fireside chat.
As with RIL, Nvidia’s partnerships with the country’s leading IT services companies, also aims to accelerate the adoption of AI across industries with specific tailor made solutions which enable clients to leverage AI effectively and at scale. For instance, with TCS it has expanded its partnership to offer cloud related solutions.
With Infosys, it will launch two small language models (SLMs) tailored for banking and IT-specific applications. In the case of Wipro, the initiatives are aimed to assist clients across various sectors, including healthcare, communications, and financial services.
Nvidia said it also plans to supply its Hopper AI chips to build large-scale data centres led by firms such as data centre provider Yotta Data Services and Tata Communications. It will also work with e-commerce company Flipkart on its conversational customer-service systems, and collaborate with India’s healthcare companies to help them improve productivity in patient care and research.
Huang described the current state of the industry as undergoing a “seismic change” due to AI advancements and suggested that India, which has traditionally been a hub for software exportation, is poised to become a leader in AI exportation in the future.
“India exported software; in the future, India will export AI,” he said, pointing towards the country shifting from merely being a back office for software production to becoming a powerhouse in AI development and delivery.
“In the long term, I am hoping that all of us have our own AI co-pilots,” he said.
Addressing concerns about job displacement, Huang said that while AI will not eliminate jobs outright, it will fundamentally change how they are performed. “AI will absolutely not take away a job, but the person who uses AI to do a job better will take away the job,” he said.
