Reliance Jio, Other GPU L1 Bidders In IndiaAI Mission To Get Workloads Soon

With the Centre stepping up its efforts to develop public AI cloud infrastructure under the IndiaAI Mission, companies such as Reliance Jio and CtrlS, which have emerged as as the lowest price (L1) bidders in the tender for sourcing graphics processing units (GPUs), will reportedly get AI workloads by the second week of April. 

The ten tech companies that include E2E, NxtGen and Locuz other than the aforementioned companies have offered 14,517 GPUs at L1 rates against the tender for 10,000 GPUs. 

GPU is a specialised chip that renders graphics and images by performing rapid mathematical calculations that are needed in processing AI.

An ET report, citing IndiaAI Mission CEO Abhishek Singh, said that some of the L1 bidders have already integrated with the AI Compute portal launched last month. The AI Compute portal is aimed at providing researchers, startups, and government agencies access to high-powered computing resources such as advanced GPUs for AI applications.

The report also mentioned that the pre-bid meeting for the second round for GPU tender held last month got a good response and IndiaAI is expecting a lot of companies in the upcoming round. 

Singh told ET that none of the L1 bidders have offered Nvidia’s B200 GPUs which are part of Nvidia’s Blackwell architecture but it may come in the second round. 

It is pertinent to note that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) launched a continuous empanelment process for AI cloud service providers that allows companies to apply on an ongoing basis to supply GPUs, MoneyControl reported in February. 

“IndiaAI would renew the empanelment every quarter inviting fresh proposals from the empaneled agencies for discovering any revised rates. Empaneled agencies shall submit a revised financial proposal which can be same or lower than the existing L1 rates,” the Request for Empanelment (RFE) document said. 

Inside The INR 10,372 Cr IndiaAI Mission

In March last year, the Union Cabinet approved the IndiaAI Mission with an allocation of INR 10,372 Cr in the next five years, aiming to foster innovation in the homegrown AI ecosystem and implementing the Mission’s vision via a public-private partnership (PPP) model. 

It covers initiatives such as IndiaAI Compute Capacity, IndiaAI Innovation Centre (IAIC), IndiaAI Datasets Platform, IndiaAI Application Development Initiative, IndiaAI FutureSkills, IndiaAI Startup Financing, and Safe & Trusted AI.

IndiaAI Compute Capacity envisions building a cutting-edge, scalable AI computing infrastructure by deploying more than 10,000 GPUs through PPP model. With IndiaAI Innovation Centre (IAIC), the Centre is looking to create a leading academic institution to retain top research talent, develop and deploy indigenous large multimodal models (LMMs) and domain-specific models

While IndiaAI Datasets platform looks into accessibility, quality, and utility of public sector datasets, the IndiaAI Future Skills program focuses on expanding the accessibility of graduate and post-graduate AI programs as well establishing AI Labs to impart foundational-level courses

Government’s Focus On GPUs And AI Infra 

The Centre is looking to build affordable AI infrastructure to support startups, academics, and research agencies. “The government is actively shaping an AI ecosystem where computing power, GPUs, and research opportunities are accessible at an affordable cost,” said MeitY in a statement last year. 

Hailing IndiaAI’s vision, the ministry said that the key focus of this mission is the development of a high-end common computing facility equipped with 18,693 GPUs. The ministry underlined that this capacity is nearly nine times that of the open-source AI model DeepSeek and about two-thirds of what ChatGPT operates on. 

Under the mission, the government also eased the eligibility criteria for the procurement of GPUs under the IndiaAI mission to allow more participation of smaller companies and startups.

It was reported in January that MeitY received offers for 20,000 GPUs which was twice of what was initially proposed for empanelling companies.

After that, the Centre selected ten tech giants for the final bidding process to procure 10,000 GPUs including Jio Platforms and Tata Communications. 

Other companies bidding for the tender are CMS Computers India Pvt Ltd, Ctrls Datacenters Ltd, E2E Networks Limited, Locuz Enterprise Solutions Ltd, Orient Technologies Ltd, NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies Private Ltd, Vensysco Technologies Limited and Yotta Data Services Limited. 

Besides, the IndiaAI Mission last month received around 120 applications to build AI foundation models in the second round of bidding, which closed on March 15.