Sarvam AI to build India's first homegrown AI foundational model, announces Ashwini Vaishnaw

In a major development that will power India’s AI dreams, the government on Saturday selected Sarvam AI to build country’s first homegrown AI foundational model. While releasing the guidelines for the ECMS scheme, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that out of the 67 proposals that were received, Sarvam AI is the first startup that has been shortlisted to develop India’s first indigenous foundational model. He further added that in the due course, there will be 2-3 more startups that will join the programme.

“The ECMS is a horizontal scheme. It will feed into various sectors, electronic, automotive and so on,” the minister said at the event.

Know about Sarvam AI

Founded in July 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, who previously worked at Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani-backed AI4Bharat, Sarvam develops a full-stack offering for Generative AI, ranging from research-led innovations in training custom AI models to an enterprise-grade platform for authoring and deployment.

Raghavan, an entrepreneur and technologist who was instrumental in building Digital Public Goods (DPGs) like Aadhaar, said that Sarvam will work with Indian enterprises to co-develop domain-specific AI models leveraging their data.

The startup aims to create population-scale impact layering Gen AI on top of the highly successful India stack specifically for public-good applications.

In December 2023,  Sarvam AI raised $41 million in its Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Ventures with participation from Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures.