Can AI models run without expensive chips? This Indian startup may have found a way

Ziroh Labs, an artificial intelligence startup operating in India, collaborated with researchers at the country’s premier technology school to design an affordable system that it says can run large AI models without requiring advanced computing chips from the likes of Nvidia Corp.

The company’s framework, called Kompact AI, was developed in partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Ziroh Labs said the platform enables AI to run on the central processing units (CPUs) found in everyday computing devices as opposed to the coveted, and costly, graphics processing units (GPUs) that have been the linchpin of the artificial intelligence boom.

A growing number of AI developers have touted efficiency gains that let them use fewer chips in the months following the viral success of China’s DeepSeek, which purportedly built a competitive AI model for a fraction of the cost of its US peers. Ziroh Labs’ approach primarily focuses on the process of inference, or operating AI systems after they’ve been trained.

Ziroh Labs said it can optimize leading AI models to run on personal computers. In a demonstration event this week, the team of researchers showed their product working on a laptop that uses a shelf-bought Intel Xeon processor and querying models such as Meta Platforms Inc.’s Llama 2 and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Qwen2.5.