The Economic Times reported that top technology executives and venture capitalists have called for the government to build large-scale GPU clusters for startup founders to innovate and realise their AI dreams. GPU clusters are groups of computers that have a graphics processing unit (GPU) on every node, which provide accelerated computing power for specific tasks such as image and video processing and training neural networks and other machine learning algorithms.
India lags behind US in AI infrastructure
According to Shridhar Garge, Head, Strategy, Planning & Programs, NVIDIA, India’s largest cluster of GPUs was about 2,000- 2,500 as compared with 20,000 plus in the US, illustrating the relevant AI infrastructure gap that impedes growth potential for the biggest breakthrough technology in the world. NVIDIA is the world’s sixth-most valuable company by market capitalization, at nearly $1.2 trillion, and its products play a crucial role in AI systems.
Garge also said that for clusters that have about 1000 GPUs, India would have around four or five. “There are certain things that are limiting the thought process of Indian startup founders – infrastructure being a very important one,” Garge said at the India Internet Day 2023 in New Delhi last week.
Government can play a key role in building common AI compute infrastructure
Rajan Anandan, MD, PeakXV Partners and Surge, said that for application-level companies like those involved in healthcare, education and customer support among others, not having this infrastructure in place is a real constraint. Thus, he said it boils down to how much capital the startups can raise but also the access that they can get.
“One thing the government can do is to build a very large-scale (GPU cluster),” Anandan said. “Why shouldn’t India build a 100,000 GPU cluster and then we give it to Indian developers, Indian research institutions, Indian startups to build on it and make it very affordable?”
He said this would be playing on our strengths of doing population scale projects at ultra-low cost and high volumes.
AI innovation can boost India’s economy and social development
The experts also highlighted the potential benefits of AI innovation for India’s economy and social development. They said that AI can help solve some of the biggest challenges facing the country such as healthcare access, education quality, agriculture productivity and environmental sustainability.
They also pointed out that India has a large pool of talent and data that can be leveraged for AI innovation. They urged the government to create a conducive ecosystem for AI startups by providing policy support, funding incentives, regulatory clarity and ethical guidelines.
They also suggested that the government should collaborate with the private sector and academia to foster research and development in AI and create a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
