Government to launch IndiaAI Compute Portal: Platform will help central ministries and state governments, 10 companies will provide 14,000 GPUs

The central government is going to launch the IndiaAI Compute Portal. Key stakeholders, including central ministries and state governments, will be allowed to request compute capacity through this platform.  As part of this initiative, the IndiaAI Compute Pillar has issued a memorandum to all Union Ministries, Departments and Chief Secretaries. The memo also gives details of subsidy rates for compute capacity, network and storage services.

According to a Hindustan Times report, the IndiaAI mission is expected to cover about 40% of the computing costs for eligible users. Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav told Moneycontrol, ‘Very soon, in the coming 7-8 days, we will launch the portal.

14,000 GPUs will be installed under IndiaAI Mission

The report states that about 14,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) will be installed under the IndiaAI Mission. Computing resources will be provided through all these GPUs. The 10 companies with the lowest bids have been selected for these GPUs.

10,000 GPUs are already available through managed service providers such as Yotta Data Services, E2E Networks, Tata Communications and AWS. The remaining 4,000 GPUs are to be purchased and are expected to be acquired by companies such as Jio Platforms and CtrlS Datacenters.

70% GPUs are high-end models like Nvidia H100

About 70% of GPUs are high-end models such as Nvidia H100, while 30% of GPUs are of low capacity or older generation. The largest contribution to the compute capacity is expected to come from 9,216 GPUs through Yotta Data Services, including 8,192 Nvidia H100 chips.

AWS will supply 1,200 lower-end GPUs

Apart from this, AWS will supply 1,200 lower-end GPUs through its four managed service providers – CMS Computer, Locus Enterprise Solutions, Orient Technologies and Vencisco Technologies. Which includes 800 AWS Inferentia 2 and 400 Trainium 1 chips.

Jio Platforms will make available 208 Nvidia H200 GPUs and 104 AMD MI300X GPUs. Also, a plan has been made to submit revised lower bids for additional GPUs in the next panel process on April 30.

Government’s promotion of AI

The Government of India has also intensified its efforts to create domestic artificial intelligence models. The government’s drive to acquire new GPUs is aimed at equipping researchers and startups with the computing power needed to build AI models that serve as the core of AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini.