Outlook Start-Up
April 12, 2023

Telangana AI mission enables start-ups to access AI computing resources

THE TELANGANA AI Mission (T-AIM), a collaboration between the Telangana government and NASSCOM, announced that it has facilitated two Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) between the Telangana government and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IIT-H).

These MoUs will allow the 142 artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups that T-AIM supports through its accelerator programme, Revv Up, to access affordable high-performance AI computing (HPAIC) via the public infrastructure set up under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).

The MoU signed with C-DAC will enable Revv Up start-ups to access AI scalable supercomputing infrastructure, with 410 AI Petaflops, at no cost for a certain period, providing T-AIM start-ups with a benefit worth Rs 10 crores. After this period, start-ups can continue to use the facilities at rates that are a third lower than those offered by private cloud infrastructure providers.

The MoU signed with IIT-H will offer Revv Up start-ups access to the PARAM SEVA computing infrastructure, which was also built by C-DAC under the aegis of NSM, at discounted rates.

The Telangana government stated that both MoUs are significant, as they will help start-ups reduce the cost of operations, particularly given a recent report by OpenAI, which predicts that the cost of training large models is expected to rise five-fold by 2030.

Overall, these MoUs will enable T-AIM start-ups to access high-performance computing resources, which are often prohibitively expensive, at affordable rates, giving them a significant competitive advantage. This, in turn, will help foster innovation and growth in the AI sector, benefiting both the start-ups and the broader economy.