3 min readNew DelhiAug 17, 2024 07:59 AM IST
First published on: Aug 17, 2024 at 04:13 AM IST
The government has finalised a tender document to procure 1,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) as part of its ambitious IndiaAI Mission and offer computing capacity to Indian start-ups, researchers, public sector agencies and other entities approved by the government, The Indian Express has learnt. A requirement of data localisation has also been considered in the tender.
The move is part of the Rs 10,370 crore IndiaAI Mission to establish a computing capacity of more than 10,000 GPUs and also help develop foundational models with a capacity of more than 100 billion parameters trained on datasets covering major Indian languages for priority sectors like healthcare, agriculture, and governance. The idea is that if such an infrastructure exists in the country, start-ups could plug into it for developing AI systems.
Computing capacity, or compute, is among the most important elements of building a large AI system, apart from algorithmic innovation and data sets. It is also one of the most difficult elements to procure for smaller businesses looking to train and build such AI systems, given the high costs.
The tender, which is for a tenth of the GPUs originally envisioned, is the first phase of the implementation of the IndiaAI Mission. It comes after the Ministry of Electronics and IT was allocated Rs 551.75 crore for the programme in the Union Budget 2024. Last month, The Indian Express had reported that the work on the tender was complete and it could be released soon.
“IndiaAI is looking to empanel AI services on cloud and offer the services to academia, MSMEs, startups, research community, governments, public sector agencies and other entities approved by IndiaAI,” the tender said.
As per the document, a consortium of partner companies can bid, with one of them designated as primary partner and the others as secondary. The maximum number of partners in a consortium will be three. Bidders can only be Indian entities incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, LLP Act, 2008, or Partnership Act, 1932.
Members of the consortium could be data centre providers, cloud services providers, or a system integrator with experience in cloud implementation. The primary partner of a consortium must have an average annual turnover of more than Rs 100 crore for the last three financial years. One key condition of the tender is that all AI services are to be delivered from data centres in India. “Data uploaded to their cloud platform by end users should not be sent outside the sovereign territory of India in any form (anonymous/pseudonymous/encrypted, etc.),” the tender said.
Successful bidders will have to ensure availability of AI compute capacity for consumption – a demand of up to 100 AI compute hours shall be met immediately and up to 500 AI compute hours shall be met within two days and demand of more than 500 hours of AI compute shall be met within a week.
Of India’s Rs 10,370 crore plan, the implementation of computing infrastructure will be done through a public-private partnership model with 50 per cent viability gap funding. If the compute prices come down, the private entity will have to add more compute capacity within the same budgeted amount to meet increased demand. Of the total outlay, Rs 4,564 crore has been earmarked for building computing infrastructure.
Successful bidders will have to ensure availability of AI compute capacity for consumption – a demand of up to 100 AI compute hours shall be met immediately and up to 500 AI compute hours shall be met within two days and demand of more than 500 hours of AI compute shall be met within a week.
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