Netizen: Sarvam AI: In The Lead

Friday, May 16, 2025

Sarvam AI: In The Lead

Sarvam AI is a Bengaluru-based artificial intelligence startup founded in July 2023 by Dr. Vivek Raghavan and Dr. Pratyush Kumar. The company focuses on developing generative AI technologies tailored to India's diverse linguistic and cultural landscape. Its mission is to create AI solutions that are accessible and beneficial to a broad spectrum of Indian users, particularly those communicating in regional languages.(Fortune India, Entrepreneur)

Founders and Their Backgrounds

Dr. Vivek Raghavan: With a background in technology and entrepreneurship, Dr. Raghavan has been instrumental in India's digital infrastructure development. He served as the Chief Product Manager at UIDAI, contributing to the Aadhaar project, and was the Chief AI Evangelist at the EkStep Foundation. His experience lies in building scalable digital public goods.(LinkedIn, Forbes India)
Dr. Pratyush Kumar: An AI and systems engineering researcher, Dr. Kumar has held positions at Microsoft Research, IBM Research, and IIT Madras. He co-founded AI4Bharat, focusing on open-source AI applications for Indian languages, and PadhAI, an initiative to democratize deep learning education. He holds a Ph.D. from ETH Zurich and a B.Tech. from IIT Bombay.(Sarvam AI)

Key Initiatives and Achievements

Sovereign Large Language Model (LLM): In April 2025, under the IndiaAI Mission, the Indian government selected Sarvam AI to develop the country's first indigenous LLM. This model aims to be fluent in Indian languages, capable of reasoning, and optimized for voice-based interactions, facilitating secure, population-scale deployment. (India Today, LinkedIn)
Product Suite:
- Sarvam Agents: Voice-enabled, multilingual AI agents deployable via phone, WhatsApp, and other platforms, supporting 10 Indian languages.
- Sarvam 2B: An open-source, 2-billion-parameter Indic language model trained on a proprietary dataset, designed for tasks like translation and summarization.
- Shuka 1.0: India's first open-source audio language model, converting Indian language voice inputs into accurate text outputs.
- A1 Legal: An AI tool for the legal sector, assisting in tasks like regulatory chat, document drafting, and data extraction.(Wikipedia)
Collaborations:
- Microsoft: Partnered to develop Indic voice LLMs available on Azure, enhancing accessibility of AI technologies tailored to Indian languages.
- UIDAI: Collaborated to introduce AI-powered voice-based Aadhaar services, aiming to improve user experience and accessibility.(Wikipedia)

Funding and Expansion

In December 2023, Sarvam AI raised $41 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Khosla Ventures and Peak XV Partners. The funds are being utilized to expand research and development, scale infrastructure, and recruit talent to further the company's vision. (Wikipedia)

Additionally, Sarvam AI launched Sarvam Labs in the San Francisco Bay Area, focusing on foundational AI research to support its mission of building generative AI solutions for a diverse user base. (@EconomicTimes)

Conclusion

Sarvam AI represents a significant step in India's journey toward technological self-reliance in artificial intelligence. By focusing on the unique linguistic and cultural needs of the Indian population, the company aims to make AI more inclusive and accessible, aligning with the broader goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India).

For a visual overview of Sarvam AI's initiatives, you might find this video informative:

Finally, India's Own AI Model! Sarvam Takes the Lead