The Government of India has selected Sarvam AI under the IndiaAI Mission to develop India’s sovereign Large Language Model (LLM) as part of the effort to create indigenous AI capabilities.
Announcing the development, Sarvam AI said, “Building India's sovereign model from the ground up is a crucial step toward Atmanirbhar Bharat.” The model will be designed to be fluent in Indian languages, optimised for voice, capable of reasoning, and ready for secure, population-scale deployment.
AIM has consistently highlighted Sarvam AI’s key role in shaping India’s AI landscape and its vision to develop indigenous AI solutions tailored to the Indian context, often referring to it as the “OpenAI of India.”
Founded in 2023 by Dr. Vivek Raghavan and Dr. Pratyush Kumar, both veterans in AI research, public infrastructure, and large-scale systems, the Bengaluru-based company is backed by Lightspeed, Peak XV Partners, and Khosla Ventures.
The company has demonstrated its capabilities by translating high-profile content, including the Lex Fridman podcast featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi, into nine Indian languages.
Sarvam AI has proposed the development of a 70-billion parameter multimodal AI model that supports both Indian languages and English, and work on it has already begun. The start-up, selected from 67 applicants, will receive government support in the form of compute resources to build the model from scratch.
“We couldn’t be more excited about this partnership, as it brings us closer to our mission of building the bedrock of Sovereign AI for India and making GenAI a reality for Bharat,” the company said in a statement on X.
Sarvam AI acknowledged the support and vision of the Government of India, including Prime Minister Modi, Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, and Abhishek Singh, CEO of the IndiaAI initiative.
The company also thanked its developer community, early customers, and supporters. “A big thank you to everyone who believes that India will chart its own path to AI leadership,” Sarvam AI said.
As India accelerates its journey towards AI self-reliance, Cypher 2025, India’s largest AI summit, emerges as a powerful convergence point for innovation and collaboration. It is scheduled to take place from September 17–19 at the KTPO Trade Centre in Whitefield, Bengaluru. In its ninth edition, the event brings together over 5,000 daily attendees, 100+ speakers, and a wave of emerging tech voices. Organised by AIM Media House, Cypher 2025 serves as a pivotal platform for professionals, startups, and enterprises to engage with the evolving AI landscape in India.
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