Govt may shortlist 7 firms as it looks to ramp up AI compute procurement

The IT ministry has called for a meeting with selected bidders on January 13, where representatives of the firms will have to give a detailed technical presentation about their proposal and how they plan to operationalise it, a person aware of the upcoming meeting said.

These bidders also have to create a demo portal showcasing the user journey for accessing their GPUs, it is learnt. To be sure, the bidders that are likely to be selected have not yet been awarded the contract to supply GPUs, but have been called to give additional technical information regarding their proposal.

“The government seems to have given preference to entities that have existing GPU capacity or have a roadmap to procure the devices within a certain period of time. Resellers have not been prioritised,” a senior industry executive said.

Queries sent to the IT ministry, Jio Platforms, Tata Communications and Yotta did not elicit a response.

Computing power, which comes from the GPUs, is one of the most crucial elements of building and training AI systems. It is an expensive technology as of now, and Nvidia has a virtual monopoly in the GPUs that go into AI-led data centres.

The government has announced a Rs 10,370-crore AI Mission to procure computing capacity in the country, and offer it at concessional rates to start-ups and researchers. Last August, the government released a tender to procure the GPUs. The plan is to procure at least 10,000 GPUs under the IndiaAI Mission.

The implementation of computing infrastructure will be done through a public-private partnership model with up to 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.

Meanwhile, the IT ministry is in discussions with the ministries of Power, and New and Renewable Energy, and other related agencies to prepare a roadmap to ensure that the growing numbers of data centres in India – a function of the global AI boom – are offered enough power supply.

“Today, the biggest question is the availability of power… As we adopt AI more and more, (the question is) do we have enough power supply to power that? Otherwise, where do you make sure that this power supply comes up in a way that we are able to address this issue,” IT Secretary S Krishnan said in December.

His comments are significant given the massive energy requirement of data centres that big technology companies are building around the world, owing to the spectacular popularity of AI solutions, which rely on such facilities for computing power.

According to the International Energy Agency, data centre electricity usage could double by 2026, making the challenge for companies to become net zero or carbon negative by 2030 increasingly unattainable.