Indian ministry seeks 10,000 AI compute units for IndiaAI Mission

India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has initiated a Request for Empanelment (RFE) seeking AI service providers to supply as many as 10,000 AI Compute Units (AICUs). These units, defined as GPUs, TPUs, or similar accelerators, are intended for use in demanding artificial intelligence workloads under the IndiaAI Mission.

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), operating under MeitY, has been designated as the implementing agency for this initiative. The goal is to establish a centralized AI computing platform to serve various ministries, departments, academia, research institutions, startups, and industries. This infrastructure is expected to support large-scale AI model training, fine-tuning, inference, and high-performance computing (HPC).

Suppliers must adhere to strict data sovereignty and hosting requirements. All infrastructure, data, metadata, logs, and disaster recovery facilities must be located within India. Additionally, providers must ensure the physical and logical isolation of C-DAC's data from other clients and prevent unauthorized access or use.

This procurement is part of India's broader strategy to bolster its AI capabilities and develop a regulatory framework. MeitY has also indicated plans to release a consultation paper on AI regulations soon. The objective is to secure adequate computing resources to drive the nation's AI advancements.