India is on track to develop its own large language model (LLM).

A large language model (LLM) is an artificial intelligence system that can understand, generate and process human language.

“The AI mission is very important for India. A sum of ₹10,000 crore has been allocated under this mission. We have seen LLMs being developed in America and China and now India has geared up.

“We have got the GPUs which is such an important component for development of LLMs,” said Jitin Prasada, Union minister of state for electronics & IT, commerce and industry.

“We will be making that available at very low cost to scientists and students so that India can come up with its own LLM foundation model as far as AI is concerned. You will see it very soon,” he said.

The IT ministry last month had said that India’s AI model is beginning with the computation facility of roughly 10000 GPUs and another 8,693 GPUs will be added.
Compared to global models computation costing $2.5 to $3 per hour usage, India’s AI model computation will cost less than ₹100 per hour after 40 per cent government subsidy, the ministry had said.

The Union minister was in the city on Wednesday to inaugurate the incubation facility of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) in Calcutta. “Here young entrepreneurs will get access, hand-holding and get benefit of the various schemes,” the minister said.

Spread over an area of 2 lakh square feet, the incubation hub is expected to offer plug and play IT infrastructure to small technology companies and start-ups.

Arvind Kumar, director-general STPI, said that the incubation facility will nurture the tech start-up ecosystem in Bengal, encourage innovation, intellectual property rights and product development, while expanding the scope of software exports from the state.

Semiconductor chipmaker GlobalFoundries is looking to open its proposed GaN (Gallium Nitride) Power Centre in the city at the STPI incubation hub, said Jitendra Chaddah, managing director and country head, GlobalFoundries Engineering Pvt. Ltd., who was present at the inauguration.