Lightspeed-Backed Sarvam AI Partners With Microsoft To Build Solutions On Azure

Bengaluru-based Sarvam AI, a startup in the generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) space, has partnered with Microsoft to build solutions on the tech giant’s cloud services, including Azure OpenAI Service.

Through the partnership, Sarvam will make its Indic voice large language model (LLM) available on Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure, it said in a statement on Thursday (February 8).

“The collaboration reinforces Microsoft’s commitment to enabling AI-driven growth and innovation in India,” the statement added.

Sarvam AI is building generative AI models targeting Indic languages and contexts. The startup aims to make the development and deployment of generative AI apps in India more accurate and cost-effective

Sarvam AI’s Indic voice LLM aims to provide a natural voice-based interface to LLMs, which will initially be available in Hindi. The startup is also working to expand coverage to more Indian languages while ensuring support for colloquial language use.

“We are very excited to collaborate with Microsoft to make advanced AI technology accessible and impactful for everyone in India. This partnership embodies our vision of ‘Sarvam’ – meaning ‘all’ – by enhancing AI’s reach across various Indian languages and sectors,” Pratyush Kumar, cofounder of Sarvam AI, said.

Sarvam AI will use Microsoft’s cloud and AI infrastructure – including Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Machine Learning – to train, host, and scale its LLMs quickly and efficiently. As part of the collaboration, Sarvam AI and Microsoft are also researching ways to better support Indian languages in Microsoft’s Generative AI frontier language models and to deploy them at scale.

Voice is a natural interface for AI apps in Indian languages, useful in education, finance, healthcare, and customer service. By making Sarvam AI’s Indic voice LLM available on Azure, Microsoft wants to enable more Indian developers to build scalable, real-time voice-based AI apps.

“Through our collaboration with Sarvam AI, we are not just supporting homegrown innovation – we are fostering a future where every individual, regardless of their language or background, can benefit from the power of voice-driven AI solutions. Together, we are taking a significant step toward enabling India’s people, communities, and organizations to achieve more,” Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India & South Asia, said.

Founded in July 2023 by AI4Bharat creators – Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar – Sarvam aims to develop custom-made large language models (LLMs), specifically designed for India-centric use cases.

In December, Sarvam AI raised Series A funding of $41 Mn (around INR 342 Cr) led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The startup panned to deploy the fresh proceeds to build a full-stack for GenAI ranging from research-led innovations in custom AI model training to an enterprise-grade platform for authoring and deployment.

According to Inc42’s latest report titled India’s Generative AI Startup Landscape, 2023, the country’s GenAI market will be growing exponentially in the next few years. It is projected to surpass $17 Bn by 2030 from $1.1 Bn in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 48%.

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