Indian Govt Deal with Nvidia Post-Elections Likely: Reports

A deal between the Indian government and Nvidia could be struck post elections to source GPUs, according to a report.

The deal is meant to help the government source GPUs in order to aid local startups, research centres and institutions at a subsidised rate. While exact details on the timeline of the deal are unclear, government officials said that this would likely be done post-elections.

The government is planning on opting for a rent-and-sublet model, wherein they will provide the GPUs to help aid in building AI compute infrastructure. This will be done under the recently greenlit 10,000 crore IndiaAI Mission.

One official stated that the reason for striking the deal is to get ahead in terms of setting up the infrastructure needed to power AI within the country. This follows news of both China and the US acquiring chips for the same purpose.

According to the official, the government decided to approach Nvidia due to the US-based company’s current stronghold over the GPU market.

Apart from this, officials stated that companies are free to strike up their own renting and subletting deals with suppliers to source GPUs. If companies choose to opt for the marketplace model, one government official said, the government will provide incentives under a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme.

"For the second option, some kind of marketplace will have to be thought of where performance can be objectively measured and thus the incentives be distributed. Or we will need a PLI-sort of compensation formula where the company which has worked out a GPU deal can show credible results to obtain the necessary benefits," the official said.

However, considering the rising costs of GPUs, with Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs costing around $40,000, the decision was made to forge a public partnership with the company.

This news comes on the heels of India’s Yotta Data Services acquiring 4,000 H100 GPUs from Nvidia last month. Following this, Deloitte India also announced a partnership with Yotta for access to their infrastructure in order to aid their clients.