Ola’s founder and CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, has officially launched Krutrim AI Labs, a dedicated initiative to develop artificial intelligence solutions tailored specifically for India. With an ambitious vision for AI innovation, Aggarwal has committed an initial investment of Rs 2,000 crore, with a larger commitment of Rs 10,000 crore planned for next year. The funding will support the establishment of the AI lab and the development of advanced AI models designed to address India-specific challenges.

Krutrim AI Labs aims to bridge gaps in AI development by focusing on Indic languages, data scarcity, and cultural nuances. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Aggarwal shared, “While we’ve been working on AI for a year, today we’re releasing our work to the open-source community and also publishing many technical reports. Our focus is on developing AI for India—to improve AI for Indian languages, data scarcity, and cultural context.”

As part of its open-source initiative, Krutrim has introduced multiple AI models, including:

• Krutrim 2: An upgraded Large Language Model (LLM)
• Chitrarth 1: A Vision Language Model
• Dhwani 1: A Speech Language Model
• Vyakhyarth 1: An Indic embedding model
• Krutrim Translate 1: A text-to-text translation model

Additionally, Krutrim has launched BharatBench, a dedicated benchmark for evaluating AI performance in Indic languages and applications.

Krutrim is also developing India’s first GB200 AI supercomputer in collaboration with NVIDIA. Expected to be operational by March, the supercomputer aims to be India’s largest AI computing system by the end of the year, significantly advancing AI research and application capabilities within the country.

Aggarwal underscored the importance of open-sourcing Krutrim’s AI models to encourage collaboration and foster a robust AI ecosystem in India. “While Krutrim has grown quickly in just a year, India still has a long way to go in AI. By open-sourcing our models, we hope to accelerate innovation and build a strong AI foundation in India,” he stated.

In December 2024, Aggarwal pledged his Ola Electric shares to secure debt funding through debenture issuance for Krutrim SI Designs. Since its inception, Krutrim has raised approximately $75 million and achieved unicorn status in January 2024. The company’s investors include Z47 (formerly Matrix), the Sarin Family, and other prominent backers.

With Krutrim AI Labs, Bhavish Aggarwal is positioning India as a key player in the global AI landscape, focusing on indigenous solutions that address the unique linguistic and cultural challenges of the region. As the AI ecosystem in India continues to evolve, Krutrim’s initiatives could pave the way for significant advancements in AI accessibility and innovation.