India will soon launch its own safe and secure indigenous Artificial Intelligence (AI) model at an affordable cost, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on Thursday.

Interacting with media in Delhi, the minister said that the proposed AI model is a timely step as India is a trusted nation among the comity of nations. The move will also help India emerge as a more reliable technological powerhouse of ethical AI solutions in the days to come, he added.

“Backed by a high-end common computing facility, the India AI mission is now closer to customising indigenous AI solutions for the Indian context using Indian languages,” Vaishnaw said, adding that scientists, researchers, developers and coders were working on multiple foundational models in this regard.

With the given pace, the Indian AI model is likely to be ready within 6 months, he remarked.

“Our prime minister’s economic thinking is very inclusive. He believes in making modern technology accessible to everyone to ensure the people at the bottom of the pyramid are economically empowered.”

According to an official release, the Indian AI model is beginning with the computation facility of roughly 10000 GPUs and soon the remaining 8693 GPUs will be added. The model will largely benefit researchers, students & developers in the beginning.

“The technical partners who are participating in the mission have  expressed a lot of confidence in the ability of the mission to deliver its objective of democratising access to computing and that too at a very competitive rate,” it said.

The statement further claimed that compared to global models costing 2.5 to 3 dollars per hour usage, India’s AI model will cost less than 100 rupees per hour after 40 per cent government subsidy. “The attractive half yearly and annual plans will further make it more affordable,” it said.

The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, within 10 months of the launch of India AI Mission, has been able to create a high end and robust  common computing facility of about 18,693 GPUs. It is about nine times of what Open Source Model DeepSeek has, and about two third of what ChatGPT has, the ministry said.

Vaishnaw, in his interaction, claimed that DeepSeek can get hosted on Indian servers after security checks so that coders, developers and designers can take benefit of its Open Source code.

“Safety and ethical deployment of AI Model remains top priority for the government,” he said, adding that India is establishing an AI Safety Institute, adopting a techno-legal approach.

The IT ministry, in its press statement, claimed that Indian AI model will address the country’s linguistic and contextual needs while eliminating biases, ensuring inclusivity and promoting fairness.

“Leading developers and researchers are working towards completing multiple foundational models within 8 to 10 months, leveraging algorithmic efficiency to achieve cost-effective and timely development,” it said.