At NDTV AI Summit, Pratyush Kumar Says India Must Build AI For Itself
“India could be the toughest country in the world to build artificial intelligence for, and that’s exactly why it should be done here.”
Speaking at the NDTV Ind.AI Summit, Pratyush Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Sarvam AI, said India’s size, many languages and huge diversity make it a “hard benchmark” for AI systems.
“If AI works well in India, it can work anywhere,” he suggested.
Kumar explained that AI improves quickly when people use it and give feedback.
Earlier, this process took years. Now, it can happen in months. “You have to put the technology out there and learn from users,” he said.
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Sarvam AI is focusing strongly on Indian languages. The company says its models are performing very well in internal tests. In document and vision benchmarks, Sarvam’s AI scored higher than global competitors like Gemini and ChatGPT in some accuracy tests.
The company also launched a new wearable product, AI-powered glasses, which are expected to go on sale in May.
A photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi trying on the glasses at the Sarvam stall went viral. Kumar said the Prime Minister even asked whether the device could speak Gujarati.
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Sarvam demonstrated tools that can read text from photos, understand speech and reply back — even through a simple feature phone call, without costly devices.
Kumar said India cannot afford to miss the AI race. As the world’s third-largest economy and one of the oldest civilizations, he believes India should build its own AI systems.
(With inputs from NDTV)
