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Sarvam AI to build India’s first sovereign LLM with reasoning and voice capabilities
Sarvam’s LLM aims to unlock secure, scalable AI applications for citizens, enterprises, and the government.
Bengaluru-based AI startup Sarvam has been selected to build India’s first sovereign large language model (LLM). The company has been selected by the Government of India under the IndiaAI Mission. Under the unique initiative, Sarvam will get the compute resources needed to build an indigenous foundational model.
The model that will be built from scratch will be capable of reasoning, designed for voice, with fluency in various Indian languages. According to the company, the model will be ready for secure and large-scale deployment.
“We are humbled by the responsibility bestowed upon us to build India’s sovereign model, and we are ready to build AI that reaches every corner of the country. This is a crucial step toward building critical national AI infrastructure. Our goal is to build multi-modal, multi-scale foundation models from scratch. When we do, a universe of applications unfolds,” Dr Vivek Raghavan, Co-founder of Sarvam, said.
According to Raghavan, for citizens , interacting with AI would feel familiar, not foreign. For enterprises, this would mean unlocking intelligence without sending their data beyond borders.
The indigenous model will be built, deployed, and optimised in India with the help of local infrastructure. Most importantly, it will be developed by a new generation of Indian talent. The IndiaAI Mission aims to prompt strategic autonomy and enhance domestic innovation to secure India’s leadership in AI for the coming years.
“Building an AI ecosystem for India has always been core to Sarvam’s mission, where our research, technology, and models empower builders to create solutions for the country. As part of the Sovereign LLM proposal, we are developing three model variants: Sarvam-Large for advanced reasoning and generation, Sarvam-Small for real-time interactive applications, and Sarvam-Edge for compact on-device tasks,” said Dr Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam.
Kumar added that the company is collaborating with AI4Bharat at IIT Madras, a leader in Indian language AI research, to build these models. “Driving this effort is a best-in-class team at Sarvam that understands the depth and complexity of AI development like few others.”
The AI company has already demonstrated its capability in developing foundational models that are proficient in Indian languages. From a research lab to now the Sovereign AI platform that backs governments, nonprofits and enterprises, the company has come a long way. Models developed by the startup are designed to be cost-effective and scalable for Indian use cases.
“We are confident that Sarvam’s models will be competitive with global models,” said Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, Railways, and Information & Broadcasting.
India's ChatGPT moment: Govt picks Sarvam AI to build first indigenous foundation model
India has taken a significant step towards its ambition of creating a homegrown AI model to compete against ChatGPT and DeepSeek. The government has selected Sarvam, a domestic AI firm, to lead the development of the country's first indigenous Large Language Model (LLM).
- India has selected Sarvam to build India’s sovereign Large Language Model
- The company is developing three LLM variants
- The upcoming model will possess reasoning capabilities, and will be fluent in Indian languages
The Government of India has been pointing towards an indigenous Large Language Model (LLM) for the past few months. To recall, earlier this year, Union Minister of Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw, announced that an AI model would be ready in 10 months, which will compete with big players, like ChatGPT and DeepSeek. But this is not it. In February, during the Paris AI Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that India is on its way to developing its Large Language Model (LLM). And now the country is taking steps to make it happen. The Government, under the IndiaAI Mission, has finally selected Sarvam to build India’s sovereign Large Language Model (LLM).
In a first-of-its-kind move, Sarvam is set to receive dedicated computing resources to develop a homegrown foundational model entirely from the ground up. As stated in the official announcement, the model will possess reasoning capabilities, be voice-centric, fluent in Indian languages, and designed for secure, large-scale deployment across the population.
The statement further emphasised that the model will be "built, deployed, and optimised in India," relying on domestic infrastructure and crafted by "a new generation of Indian talent." This initiative is intended to foster strategic independence, drive innovation within the country, and solidify India’s long-term leadership in the field of artificial intelligence.
India's LLM model by Sarvam: 3 models
Sarvam, a pioneering Indian artificial intelligence company, is on a mission to build the bedrock of Sovereign AI for India and make GenAI a reality for Bharat. The company has already demonstrated proven capability in developing foundational models proficient in Indian languages. During the announcement, Ashwini Vaishnaw said, "We are confident that Sarvam’s models will be competitive with global models."
Dr Pratyush Kumar, Co-founder of Sarvam, said, “We are deeply grateful to the Government of India for its vision and support in advancing AI. Building an AI ecosystem for India has always been core to Sarvam’s mission, where our research, technology, and models empower builders to create solutions for the country."
Moreover, he added that as a part of the Sovereign LLM proposal, the company is developing three model variants:
-- Sarvam-Large for advanced reasoning and generation,
-- Sarvam-Small for real-time interactive applications, and
-- Sarvam-Edge for compact on-device tasks.
Dr Vivek Raghavan, Co-founder of Sarvam, said, “We are humbled by the responsibility bestowed upon us to build India’s sovereign model, and we are ready to build AI that reaches every corner of the country. This is a crucial step toward building critical national AI infrastructure. Our goal is to build multi-modal, multi-scale foundation models from scratch. When we do, a universe of applications unfolds. For citizens, this means interacting with AI that feels familiar, not foreign. For enterprises, this means unlocking intelligence without sending their data beyond borders.”
Sarvam is also collaborating with AI4Bharat at IIT Madras, a leader in Indian language AI research, to build these models.
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