Keen On Partnering With Indian Companies To Deploy GPUs: NVIDIA’s Vishal Dhupar

NVIDIA India’s top executive Vishal Dhupar on Monday (March 18) said that the graphics processing unit (GPU) maker is keen on partnering more Indian companies to deploy its AI solutions. 

“We’re going to also work with more business houses to bring it (GPUs) here and cater for the sensitivities of this country, helping you to innovate and build here so that you can maximise the disruption that is needed in our country,” NVIDIA Asia-South’s managing director Vishal Dhupar said.

Dhupar made the comments during a fireside chat with Peak XV Partners’ Rajan Anandan during the ongoing ‘Startup Mahakumbh’ in New Delhi.

Speaking about the company’s India-specific AI developments, Dhupar said that real estate mogul Niranjan Hiranandani-backed Yotta Data Services has invested capital to acquire the GPU manufacturer’s 16,000 chips.

Dhupar also said that he witnessed the machines coming into the country last week, adding that the GPUs would ‘quickly get built up’.

This would imply that the US-based chip maker has essentially made its first major AI bet in India via Yotta. NVIDIA’s products are highly sought after as they’re essential for the development of AI, and are essential for training large language models (LLMs) and building apps such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

In response to a question, the NVIDIA India boss said that he found Krutrim, Sarvam AI and Immersio as the three “most exciting” AI startups out of India.

During the chat, Anandan, while acknowledging India’s limited role in the global AI space, said that he is optimistic that the homegrown ecosystem would grow by leaps and bounds in the upcoming time. 

On the other hand, Dhupar said that there is limited AI research progress in the country on account of inadequate infrastructure. 

“The amount of AI research happening in India right now is very low, about 2%. This is much less compared to China and the US together, which is around 58-59%. If we look into why India’s research is so low, even the top AI researchers here contribute only 2%,” Dhupar explained.

The duo, however, acknowledged that the Indian government was working towards bolstering AI infrastructure nationwide.

Dhupar was speaking on the first day of the three-day long Startup Mahakumbh event in New Delhi on Monday. Boasting of 10+ thematic pavilions where startups showcased their innovative offerings, the event also saw participation from senior government functionaries as well as top startup founders and investors in the country. 

At the same event, MeitY Startup Hub (MSH) CEO Jeet Vijay underscored the need for fostering an intellectual property (IP)-friendly framework to spur deeptech innovation in the country. Deeptech encompasses emerging technologies such as AI, semiconductors, among others. 

Notably, this is not NVIDIA’s first strategic partnership with an Indian company in the recent past. In September 2023, NVIDIA announced back-to-back partnerships with Indian conglomerates Tata Group and Reliance’s Jio Platforms to offer them AI supercomputer technologies such as CPU, GPU, networking, among others.