Deloitte Launches Open Model Engineering Practice in India to Scale Agentic AI

Deloitte has launched an Open Model Engineering practice in India and other key global markets to help enterprises build, deploy, and scale agentic AI applications using a combination of open and proprietary models.

The practice will initially operate across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, including India, and will focus on enterprise AI applications built on open-source AI frameworks and open models. Deloitte said the initiative aims to give enterprises greater flexibility over model selection, costs, deployment environments, data, intellectual property, and model behaviour as AI adoption expands.

“Open models add an important dimension to that strategy because they allow enterprises to shape AI around their own data, processes and context rather than designing the enterprise around the limitations of a model. Our Open Model Engineering practice is designed to build that flexibility in from the start, without compromising governance or the distinctiveness of the business,” said Sathish Gopalaiah, President, Consulting, Deloitte South Asia, in a statement.

According to Deloitte, enterprises are increasingly weighing four factors when deploying AI: flexibility to select models and architectures for different workloads, predictable costs as aAgentic AI usage grows, sovereignty over where models are deployed, and greater control over enterprise data, IP, and model behaviour.

The consulting firm said tThe new practice will help clients evaluate proprietary and open models, aAgentic AI platforms, cloud services, and on-premises infrastructure based on individual workloads. It will also focus on managing token economics, fine-tuning open models for geographical, linguistic, and cultural contexts, and giving enterprises greater control over where models run and what data they share.

Deloitte’s initial Open Model Engineering work will focus on enterprise applications powered by NVIDIA Nemotron open models and NIM microservices. Deloitte firms will also help clients develop sovereign AI stacks using open-source frameworks, fine-tune open models, and strengthen cybersecurity using open-source security tools.

“Enterprises need both open and proprietary models for different workloads,” said Kari Briski, VP of Generative AI at NVIDIA. “Deloitte’s Open Model Engineering practice, built on NVIDIA Nemotron models, gives developers greater control over enterprise data and proprietary information while enabling secure, responsible deployment of agentic AI.”

The practice will also leverage Deloitte’s Zora AI digital workforce platform, with agentic harness capabilities built on NVIDIA Nemotron models and NIM. The platform intends to allow enterprises to deploy, optimise, and govern AI agents using open models within their own environments.

Deloitte plans to hire, train and certify forward-deployed engineers globally through fiscal year 2027. These engineers will work directly with clients to implement open-model solutions and are expected to form the operational backbone of the new practice.