India’s ‘DeepSeek Moment’ is Here

Finally, India is not just ruminating and watching anymore—it is now taking action at ‘deep speed’. The government has officially called for proposals to develop homegrown AI models, marking a decisive push toward sovereign AI that can compete globally.

Through the IndiaAI Mission, startups, researchers, and entrepreneurs are invited to build large multimodal models (LMMs), large language models (LLMs), and small language models (SLMs), ensuring AI that is deeply rooted in India’s languages and culture.

IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw reinforced the urgency of this effort, stating, “Very soon, we will have our own LLMs,” while confirming that the IndiaAI Compute Facility has secured 18,000+ GPUs to support development. This comes on the heels of DeepSeek, the powerful Chinese AI model built for less than $6 million.