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Centre finalises tender to procure 1,000 GPUs under IndiaAI Mission

Centre finalises tender to procure 1,000 GPUs under IndiaAI Mission

  • The government has finalised a tender document to procure 1,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) as part of its ambitious IndiaAI Mission

Highlights:

  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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

Prelims Takeaway

  • GPU
  • IndiaAI mission

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