Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder of Ola, has introduced Krutrim SI Designs, a pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) venture, revealing a family of multilingual AI models designed specifically for the diverse requirements of the Indian ecosystem.
Named ‘Krutrim,’ meaning ‘artificial’ in Sanskrit, the venture offers two sizes of AI models. The base model, Krutrim, has been trained on an impressive 2 trillion tokens and unique datasets, while the more advanced Krutrim Pro is set to launch next quarter, boasting enhanced problem-solving and task execution capabilities.
Aggarwal emphasized the significance of India-first AI, stating, “India-first AI should be able to understand the uniqueness and the right cultural context. It needs to be trained on unique data sets specific to us. And on top of it all, it needs to be accessible to India, with India-first cost structures.”
Krutrim demonstrates remarkable language capabilities, understanding 22 Indian languages and generating content in approximately 10, including Marathi, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Odia, Gujarati, and Malayalam. Notably, the base model incorporates about 20 times more Indic tokens than any other existing model.
The Krutrim team, spread across India and the Bay Area in the US, has already integrated the AI models into Ola group companies for various tasks, such as customer support, voice and chat services, and customer sales calls.
Aggarwal announced that the full open release of Krutrim is scheduled for January 2024, with Krutrim APIs becoming accessible to developers from February 2024. The company is already accepting sign-ups for the base model, offering early access in batches.
Looking ahead, Krutrim SI Designs has ambitious plans, including the launch of a supercomputer within the next two years. Additionally, the company aims to develop AI infrastructure, indigenous data centers, and, ultimately, server-computing, edge-computing, and supercomputers, with prototypes expected in mid-2024 and a production roadmap by the end of 2025.
Senior executives from the company asserted that Krutrim surpasses OpenAI’s GPT-4 in Indian languages in terms of both timing and computation. In English, Krutrim outperforms Meta’s Llama 2 chat but lags behind GPT-4, Google’s Bard, and Gemini.
Operating in multiple modes, including text and voice, Krutrim is set to be available for both wide-scale consumer usage and priced enterprise usage in the future. Aggarwal clarified that Krutrim is a separate entity, not a subsidiary of Ola Cabs or Ola Electric, though collaboration in terms of data sharing and usage is possible.
Launched in April 2023, Krutrim SI Designs was founded by Aggarwal and Krishnamurthy Venugopala Tenneti, a board member of ANI Technologies Ltd, the parent company of Ola Cabs and Ola Electric. The company aims not only to provide advanced AI models but also to delve into building its own chiplets and other AI-focused hardware for data centers, emphasizing that while the model is the soul of their work, the infrastructure and silicon are the body.