Key takeaways
- Krutrim launches DeepSeek-R1 on H100 GPUs, offering unprecedented access to powerful AI at ₹1 per million tokens.
- The initiative promotes data sovereignty by hosting models locally in India, ensuring secure AI deployment.
- Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal emphasizes the importance of competitive AI advancements for India.
- Krutrim AI Cloud provides Model-as-a-Service and GPU-as-a-Service to boost AI adoption among Indian developers.
- The company also announced a ₹2,000 crore investment in the Krutrim AI Lab for advanced AI research.
Krutrim, Ola’s AI arm, claims to become the first in the world to deploy DeepSeek-R1 671B on H100 GPUs, offering Indian developers access to the most powerful open-source AI model at an unprecedented price of ₹1 per million tokens for February.
Announcing the move, Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal emphasised the need for India to stay competitive in AI. “While we in India should be cautious with the DeepSeek app, we can totally make use of the open source model namesake, if securely deployed on Indian servers, to leapfrog our own AI progress,” he posted on social media accounts.
While we in India should be cautious with the DeepSeek app, we can totally make use of the open source model namesake, if securely deployed on Indian servers, to leapfrog our own AI progress. @Krutrim has deployed DeepSeek-R1 671B on H100s - first time anywhere in the world.… pic.twitter.com/jB9f21IiBC
— Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) February 11, 2025
The models are now available via Krutrim AI Cloud, the company’s AI infrastructure. The platform, which offers Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) and GPU-as-a-Service, aims to drive AI adoption across Indian businesses and developers.
Krutrim’s hosting of DeepSeek models locally in the country ensures data sovereignty while providing advanced AI tools at the most affordable rates globally.
Alongside this development, Aggarwal earlier also announced the launch of Krutrim AI Lab, a ₹2,000 crore initiative for AI research and open-source model development. In collaboration with NVIDIA, the lab is set to deploy India’s first GB200 supercomputer by March 2025.
This infrastructure will support the training and deployment of AI models, addressing challenges related to data scarcity and cultural context. The lab has committed an investment of ₹2,000 crore into Krutrim, with a pledge to increase this to ₹10,000 crore by next year.
By open sourcing the models, Aggarwal said that he aims to foster collaboration within India’s AI community, accelerating the development of a world-class AI ecosystem.
