NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently touched down in India after a brief stop in Denmark, where he is set to participate in the AI Summit. During this event, he will engage in discussions with Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries and Asia’s richest person. Huang’s presence at the summit underscores NVIDIA’s commitment to India, the world’s most populous nation, as he seeks to establish partnerships with several prominent companies, including Infosys.
The AI Summit in Mumbai will showcase how industries across India are leveraging NVIDIA’s AI technologies to enhance their products and services. Huang has been touring the globe this year, promoting what he refers to as the “new industrial revolution” powered by AI.
With a population of 1.4 billion, India presents a significant platform for AI potential, and various sectors—including agriculture, education, and manufacturing—are beginning to use AI technologies to boost efficiency. Major global tech players like NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Meta are viewing India as a key growth market and operational hub.
At the summit, NVIDIA unveiled a new small language model called Nemotron-4-Mini-Hindi-4B, which boasts 4 billion parameters to help businesses develop their own AI models. According to NVIDIA’s press release, “This model has been refined using real-world Hindi data, synthetic Hindi data, and an equal volume of English data for training.”
Tech Mahindra, an Indian IT services and consulting firm, is leading the charge by utilizing NVIDIA’s technologies to create a customized AI model named Indus 2.0, focused on Hindi and its numerous dialects.
The primary distinction between small language models and the larger models like those used in ChatGPT lies in the smaller, more specialized databases used for training the former. Small models are typically more cost-effective, making them an attractive option for resource-constrained companies.
Moreover, NVIDIA is collaborating with the e-commerce platform Flipkart to develop a conversational customer service system. The company also plans to partner with medical firms in India to enhance productivity in patient care and research.
NVIDIA has been operating in Bangalore, Southern India, for the past 20 years and has established R&D centers in three other cities, employing around 4,000 engineers—second only to the U.S. in staff numbers.
About a year ago, NVIDIA struck agreements with local Indian conglomerates, including Reliance and Tata, to set up AI data centers. During an August shareholder meeting, Ambani mentioned that Reliance is working on a suite of AI tools and applications called JioBrain, referencing AI an impressive 80 times throughout the meeting.
As U.S.-China relations continue to fray, India’s position within the global tech industry is becoming increasingly significant. Last month, Huang met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the U.S., declaring that “this is India’s time.”
Global chip manufacturers are also investing in India and establishing production facilities to expand their influence in the country. India is ramping up efforts to develop its semiconductor industry in hopes of competing with powerhouses like Taiwan. However, analysts caution that tangible results may take years to materialize.
