Sarvam AI: Free AI Services a Challenge

New Delhi, Feb 17 (PTI) Sovereign AI can grow to the next level if it is used at a large scale, however, free services by global companies are a challenge, domestic AI firm Sarvam's Founder Vivek Raghavan said on Tuesday.

Sovereign AI is an AI platform developed indigenously from scratch using own datasets, which enables nations to reduce reliance on foreign technology firms and protects their national interests.

Notably, OpenAI is offering access to ChatGPT for free while Reliance Jio in partnership with Google is offering free access to AI platform Gemini.

Speaking at a session in AI Impact Summit here, Raghavan said, "We are going to put some models out there which are world-class in their category. We have been doing that over the past few weeks and we hope to do some more. But I think the important thing is that these models can actually reach the next level only when there is usage at a large scale".

He observed that one of the challenges is that Sarvam AI was looking at competing with free models.


"In the real world nothing is free so if all the frontier models are available for free in any other industry it will probably be called dumping but here .. that is something that we have to figure out," Raghavan said.

He said the US and China are far ahead of India and that is a fact "we have to accept."

The Sarvam AI Founder said India needs to decide whether it wants to become a digital colony or come in the nations that own AI technology.

He emphasized the importance of making sure that Indian models are used at a large scale. PTI RSN PRS ANU

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