India taps Sarvam to build sovereign large language model

The Government of India has selected Sarvam, an artificial intelligence (AI) firm, to build the country’s sovereign large language model (LLM) as part of the IndiaAI Mission, a national effort to strengthen domestic capabilities in emerging technologies.

Under the initiative, Sarvam will receive dedicated compute resources to develop the model from scratch. Designed to be capable of reasoning, optimised for voice applications, and fluent across Indian languages, the model is intended for secure deployment at a population scale.

The project marks a significant step toward the government’s goal of promoting strategic autonomy in technology and fostering innovation under its Atmanirbhar Bharat, or self-reliant India, initiative. The model will be developed, deployed, and optimised within India, relying on domestic infrastructure and local talent.

"We are confident that Sarvam’s models will be competitive with global models," said Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Railways, and Information and Broadcasting.

Founded as a research lab, Sarvam has expanded into a full-stack artificial intelligence platform that provides generative AI solutions to governments, enterprises, and nonprofits. The company’s models, according to internal assessments, outperform several leading frontier models on Indian language benchmarks and are designed to be scalable and cost-efficient.

"We are humbled by the responsibility bestowed upon us to build India’s sovereign model, and we are ready to build AI that reaches every corner of the country," said Vivek Raghavan, co-founder of Sarvam. "This is a crucial step toward building critical national AI infrastructure. Our goal is to build multi-modal, multi-scale foundation models from scratch. When we do, a universe of applications unfolds. For citizens, this means interacting with AI that feels familiar, not foreign. For enterprises, this means unlocking intelligence without sending their data beyond borders."

Sarvam’s development plan includes three variants: Sarvam-Large, aimed at advanced reasoning and generation tasks; Sarvam-Small, for real-time interactive applications; and Sarvam-Edge, designed for compact, on-device use cases. The company is collaborating with AI4Bharat, a research initiative at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras focused on Indian language technologies.

"We are deeply grateful to the Government of India for its vision and support in advancing AI," said Pratyush Kumar, Co-founder of Sarvam. "Building an AI ecosystem for India has always been core to Sarvam’s mission, where our research, technology, and models empower builders to create solutions for the country."

Sarvam’s clients include the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Urban Company, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and NITI Aayog. The company is backed by venture investors such as Lightspeed, Peak XV Partners, and Khosla Ventures.

The IndiaAI Mission was announced as part of the government's broader efforts to position India as a global leader in the development and responsible use of artificial intelligence technologies. The sovereign LLM project is intended not only to ensure data privacy and national security, but also to promote the use of AI in sectors such as healthcare, education, agriculture, and governance.

Officials said the collaboration with Sarvam reflects an emphasis on building AI models that are culturally and linguistically aligned with India’s diverse population, reducing dependency on foreign technologies for critical infrastructure needs.