The Centre is planning to establish artificial intelligence computing assessment and curation units across all ministries and their respective departments as part of a nearly Rs 10,000-crore initiative. This follows an assessment of each ministry’s high-end computing needs and resource requirements, according to official sources cited by ET.
Based on the information provided by each ministry, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) will determine the number of GPUs to be allocated, a source revealed. “GPUs are a scarce resource, and ministries without heavy computing demands may need to share them in a fragmented or distributed manner,” a senior government official told ET. Under the Rs 10,372-crore India AI mission, the IT ministry aims to establish a computing capacity of 10,000 or more GPUs and ensure their fair and equitable distribution through domestic data center companies.
The procurement of these GPUs could cost up to Rs 5,000 crore, according to Abhishek Singh, additional secretary to the Ministry of Electronics and IT, who spoke at the recent Global India AI Summit. ET had previously reported on April 17 that the IT ministry was negotiating with global GPU manufacturers such as Nvidia to source high-end computing units and provide them at subsidized rates to Indian startups, academic institutions, R&D institutes, and other companies. The government is also considering a viability gap funding model.
Establishing AI compute infrastructure has become a strategic priority for countries worldwide, with many spending billions to secure computing capacity for their industries and national security. Nations like China and the US have already begun acquiring Nvidia’s range of GPUs, including the powerful H100 chips.
“Unlike about eight months ago, when GPU supply was extremely limited with long waiting periods, Nvidia’s H100 chips are now available within a reasonable period of 6-8 weeks. We want to ensure they are utilized most efficiently,” another IT ministry official stated. Nvidia is one of the few companies manufacturing GPUs, and the high demand has increased its market value to $2.16 trillion, making it the third most valuable company behind Microsoft and Apple. Indian companies like the Reliance Group, Tata Group, and Yotta Infrastructure have already signed deals with Nvidia to bring GPUs to domestic firms.
ET had earlier reported that Yotta would import 24,000 GPUs, including the popular Nvidia H100s and L40S, in phases. The first batch of these GPUs began arriving in India in March.
