The government is seeking bids for entities to offer artificial intelligence (AI) services through cloud computing as part of the India AI Mission, a project worth Rs 10,372 crore approved earlier this year. The selected agencies, which include data centers and cloud service providers, will provide high-speed computing AI infrastructure like GPUs and storage to academia, startups, researchers, and government bodies.
The India AI Mission aims to establish an AI ecosystem by providing access to over 10,000 GPUs for various stakeholders. To achieve this goal, IndiaAI, an initiative under Digital India Corporation, MeitY, has issued a Request for Empanelment (RFE) to select service providers.
The rapid growth of AI has driven up the demand for GPU-based servers due to their faster processing capabilities compared to CPU-based servers. However, accessing GPU-based cloud services in India can be costly, with prices estimated to be double those in countries with a greater number of GPUs installed.
The empaneled agencies will offer high-performance computing, network, and storage services essential for implementing activities under the IndiaAI Mission, such as developing AI applications. IndiaAI will approve end users who can access these cloud-based AI services at competitive prices determined through a transparent process.
To be eligible, agencies must provide 1,000 AI compute units through their cloud platform within six months of signing the agreement with IndiaAI. Each compute unit should deliver processing speeds of at least 15 TFLOPS, achieved primarily through GPUs or Google’s TPUs.
Nvidia currently dominates the GPU market with an estimated 88% share. The Ministry of Electronics and IT has set September 6 as the deadline for bid submissions, emphasizing that the selection process is an invitation to receive proposals rather than a procurement agreement. IndiaAI will pay the approved subsidy for utilized AI services to end users through the empaneled providers over a 36-month period, with possible extensions based on mutual terms.
