How is the IndiaAI Mission onboarding 34,381 GPUs from 14 empanelled service providers?

New Delhi, July 24 (NationPress) India’s AI strategy is designed to place the nation as a front-runner in artificial intelligence. As of now, a total of 34,381 GPUs have been onboarded from 14 empanelled service providers, according to government reports.

The government offers these GPUs at a subsidized cost, with the average rate being approximately Rs 65 per GPU per hour. For H100 GPUs, which are essential for foundational model training, the cost is Rs 92 per GPU per hour, considerably lower than rates set by commercial hyper-scaler cloud providers, as stated by Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in response to a Lok Sabha inquiry.

India boasts a robust information technology ecosystem, generating annual revenues exceeding $250 billion and employing over 6 million individuals.

International rankings, including the Stanford AI rankings, highlight India as one of the leading nations in AI skills, capabilities, and policies. Moreover, India stands as the second-largest contributor to GitHub AI projects, reflecting its active developer community.

The IndiaAI mission was initiated in March 2024, aimed at establishing a strong and inclusive AI ecosystem that aligns with India's developmental objectives.

The ‘IndiaAI Application Development Initiative’ is focused on crafting AI applications to address specific challenges in sectors like climate change, disaster management, healthcare, agriculture, governance, and assistive technologies for individuals with learning disabilities. To date, 30 applications have received approval, according to the minister.

Additionally, sector-specific hackathons have been organized in collaboration with other ministries and government institutions.

‘AIKosh’ serves as a unified data platform that integrates datasets from both government and non-government sources. The beta version, launched in March 2025, currently hosts over 890 datasets, 208 AI models, and more than 13 development toolkits.

“These resources function as foundational elements for developers, enabling them to concentrate on core AI functionalities instead of reinventing modules,” the minister remarked.

The 'IndiaAI Foundation Models' initiative is set to develop India’s own Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) trained on Indian datasets and languages, ensuring sovereign capability and global competitiveness in generative AI.

The IndiaAI Mission has received over 500 proposals. In the initial phase, 4 startups - Sarvam AI, Soket AI, Gnani AI, and Gan AI - have been selected.

The 'IndiaAI FutureSkills' initiative is dedicated to cultivating AI-skilled professionals in India by increasing the number of graduates, post-graduates, and PhDs in the AI domain. So far, over 200 students have been awarded fellowships in the first year, with 26 partner institutes onboarding PhD students. The initiative envisions establishing Data and AI Labs in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities throughout India.