NVIDIA partners with Jio, Tata to build AI infrastructure in India

Global chip design major NVIDIA is collaborating with two power conglomerates in India – Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms Limited and the Tata Group – to build cloud-based artificial intelligence computing infrastructure in the country, the company informed in two separate statements on Friday.

“This state-of-the art platform will be a catalyst in accelerating AI-driven innovations across sectors,” said Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited Akash Ambani, adding that the conglomerate’s vision is to make AI accessible to researchers, start-ups and enterprises across the nation.

It is a shot in the arm for India’s artificial intelligence and semiconductor chip ambitions and comes days after NVIDIA chief executive Jensen Huang met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi to discuss the potential India holds in the field of artificial intelligence. 

“We talked at length about the rich potential India offers in the world of AI. Mr. Jensen Huang was appreciative of the strides India has made in this sector and was equally upbeat about the talented youth of India,” PM Modi said in a post on microblogging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

As part of the two collaborations, NVIDIA will provide its GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip to the two companies, in addition to other technologies. Jio will maintain the AI cloud infrastructure and oversee customer engagement and access, while Tata Consultancy Services will utilise the AI infrastructure and capabilities to build and process generative AI applications. TCS will also upskill its 6,00,000-strong workforce leveraging the partnership.

“This is a key transformational trend of the decade and every company must prepare to make this AI transition,” said Chairman of Tata Sons N Chandrasekaran.

"We are delighted to partner with Tata as they expand their cloud infrastructure service with NVIDIA AI supercomputing to support the exponential demand of generative AI startups and processing of large language models.” NVIDIA’s Huang said.

The US-based chipmaker will work with Jio to build AI infrastructure that will be more powerful than the fastest supercomputer in India today, NVIDIA noted in its statement. The AI infrastructure will be hosted in AI-ready computing data centers that will eventually expand to 2,000 MW, it added.

“India has scale, data and talent. With the most advanced AI computing infrastructure, Reliance can build its own large language models that power generative AI applications made in India, for the people of India,” said Huang.

The new infrastructure will speed up a wide range of India’s key initiatives and AI projects, including AI chatbots, drug discovery, climate research and more - Reliance’s statement highlighted.

“This will help all companies - NVIDIA with a new big market; TATA and Reliance with future technology adoption in their business,” said Vaibhav Kaushik, who is a research analyst at GCL Broking. This will change the gaming and communication industry very fast in India, he added.