A consortium supported by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd. and top engineering institutions in India is set to introduce its inaugural ChatGPT-style service next month, marking a significant stride in the country's aspirations to establish itself in the realm of artificial intelligence. The BharatGPT consortium, which includes a branch of India's most valuable company and eight affiliated universities, provided a preview of its large language model during a technology conference in Mumbai. Through a showcased video, individuals from various backgrounds interacted with an AI bot in different Indian languages, showcasing its versatility.If successful, the model, named Hanooman after the half-monkey Hindu deity, will signify a notable advancement for India in the competitive landscape of AI development. BharatGPT aims for the model to operate across 11 local languages in key sectors such as healthcare, governance, financial services, and education.
The collaboration between BharatGPT and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) universities, including the one in Bombay, supported by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. and the Indian government, has led to the model's creation. Additionally, various startups like Sarvam and Krutrim, along with notable VC investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vinod Khosla's fund, are also contributing to the development of open-source AI models tailored for Indian contexts. While Silicon Valley companies like OpenAI are pursuing larger language models (LLMs), BharatGPT's efforts focus on addressing computational limitations and creating simpler models accessible to smaller businesses and government entities. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, chair of IIT Bombay's department of computer science and engineering, emphasized that Hanooman will include speech-to-text capabilities, enhancing its usability, particularly in a country where millions are unable to read or write.
Reliance Jio intends to develop customized models for specific applications, leveraging its extensive network of approximately 450 million subscribers through initiatives like Jio Brain, a platform aimed at deploying AI technologies across its services. LLMs are systems that learn from vast quantities of data and generate natural-sounding responses. Such models harness generative AI, a newer type of artificial intelligence popularized by the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.