An analysis of the lowest (L1) prices released by the IndiaAI Mission for the second round of the tender for graphics processing units (GPU) shows an up to 10% fall in prices compared with the first round.
The first-round bidders will be asked to match these prices, resulting in substantial savings for the users. The GPUs are sourced under a government scheme to provide subsidised compute power to local artificial intelligence projects.
The decline in the price of the same GPU model from the first round to the second round ranged from just Rs 4 an hour to as high as Rs 1,234 per hour.
While some companies told ET that the reduced L1 rates will help kickstart artificial intelligence pilot projects in various domains, which previously may have been cost-prohibitive, others warned of a price bloodbath for GPU capacity providers.
The prices are possibly the lowest in the world for GPU services, helped by the 40% government subsidy.
AI startups, developers, researchers and corporations exploring and implementing AI would be able to afford GPU capacity by leasing from the identified providers.
“All existing empanelled players will be asked to match new L1 prices,” IndiaAI Mission chief executive Abhishek Singh told ET. “From what we hear from companies, they will mostly match, to retain their priority of allocation of AI workloads.”
As many as 53 categories of GPUs have been offered in the second round of the tender, out of which some are new (like Nvidia’s B200 GPUs). In 16 categories, prices have reduced compared with the first round.
Singh said assigning AI workloads is an ongoing process and companies have six months to provision the GPUs.
As per the IndiaAI website, 4,423 GPUs with a total subsidy of Rs 111.86 crore have been allocated so far. Compute has been allocated to 21 applicants from academia, government entities, early-stage startups, MSMEs and the student community.
Bengaluru-based startup Sarvam AI, the first startup selected to build an indigenous foundational model under the IndiaAI Mission, has already been allocated 4,000 GPUs, Singh said. Others like Soket, Gnani and Gan are expected to give their estimate on the compute they need.
“Allocation is dynamic. Companies have invested heavily in bidding for GPUs. Commitments require significant money and those in the business have done so after their assessments,” he said.
Sarvam has received the highest subsidy allocated under the programme at Rs 98.68 crore, out of a bill of Rs 246.71 crore for 4,096 Nvidia H100 GPUs, as per the IndiaAI website.
IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday announced the addition of 15,916 GPUs to the existing cluster of 18,417 GPUs under the programme, taking the total to 34,333 GPUs.
These include GPUs of Nvidia, AMD, AWS and Intel. The offering comprises 15,100 H100 Nvidia GPUs, 8,192 Nvidia B200 GPUs, 4,812 Nvidia H200 GPUs, and 1,973 Nvidia L40S GPUs.
Users gain, industry cautious
“The combination of reduced L1 rates and government support will help kickstart pilot projects in various domains, enabling more organisations to experiment with and scale AI use cases that previously may have been cost-prohibitive,” said Rishikesh Kamat, senior director, Cloud services division, at NTT Data India, one of the seven empanelled bidders in round two.
Anuj Bairathi, chief executive of Cyfuture India, another empanelled bidder in round two, warned of lower prices creating problems for the nascent industry.
“It’s advantageous for users but is concerning for service providers, as a price bloodbath is on," he said. Moreover, it would be even more fatal for companies if workloads as envisaged by the IndiaAI Mission don’t come through, he said.
The average L1 hourly GPU price was Rs 612.85 in the first round of empanelment against an average Rs 655.90 in the second round of empanelment. While there has been a decline in price for the same GPUs between the two rounds, the average is higher in the second round because of newer categories of GPUs.
The first-round bidders will be asked to match these prices, resulting in substantial savings for the users. The GPUs are sourced under a government scheme to provide subsidised compute power to local artificial intelligence projects.
The decline in the price of the same GPU model from the first round to the second round ranged from just Rs 4 an hour to as high as Rs 1,234 per hour.
While some companies told ET that the reduced L1 rates will help kickstart artificial intelligence pilot projects in various domains, which previously may have been cost-prohibitive, others warned of a price bloodbath for GPU capacity providers.
The prices are possibly the lowest in the world for GPU services, helped by the 40% government subsidy.
AI startups, developers, researchers and corporations exploring and implementing AI would be able to afford GPU capacity by leasing from the identified providers.
“All existing empanelled players will be asked to match new L1 prices,” IndiaAI Mission chief executive Abhishek Singh told ET. “From what we hear from companies, they will mostly match, to retain their priority of allocation of AI workloads.”
As many as 53 categories of GPUs have been offered in the second round of the tender, out of which some are new (like Nvidia’s B200 GPUs). In 16 categories, prices have reduced compared with the first round.
Singh said assigning AI workloads is an ongoing process and companies have six months to provision the GPUs.
As per the IndiaAI website, 4,423 GPUs with a total subsidy of Rs 111.86 crore have been allocated so far. Compute has been allocated to 21 applicants from academia, government entities, early-stage startups, MSMEs and the student community.
Bengaluru-based startup Sarvam AI, the first startup selected to build an indigenous foundational model under the IndiaAI Mission, has already been allocated 4,000 GPUs, Singh said. Others like Soket, Gnani and Gan are expected to give their estimate on the compute they need.
“Allocation is dynamic. Companies have invested heavily in bidding for GPUs. Commitments require significant money and those in the business have done so after their assessments,” he said.
Sarvam has received the highest subsidy allocated under the programme at Rs 98.68 crore, out of a bill of Rs 246.71 crore for 4,096 Nvidia H100 GPUs, as per the IndiaAI website.
IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday announced the addition of 15,916 GPUs to the existing cluster of 18,417 GPUs under the programme, taking the total to 34,333 GPUs.
These include GPUs of Nvidia, AMD, AWS and Intel. The offering comprises 15,100 H100 Nvidia GPUs, 8,192 Nvidia B200 GPUs, 4,812 Nvidia H200 GPUs, and 1,973 Nvidia L40S GPUs.
Users gain, industry cautious
“The combination of reduced L1 rates and government support will help kickstart pilot projects in various domains, enabling more organisations to experiment with and scale AI use cases that previously may have been cost-prohibitive,” said Rishikesh Kamat, senior director, Cloud services division, at NTT Data India, one of the seven empanelled bidders in round two.
Anuj Bairathi, chief executive of Cyfuture India, another empanelled bidder in round two, warned of lower prices creating problems for the nascent industry.
“It’s advantageous for users but is concerning for service providers, as a price bloodbath is on," he said. Moreover, it would be even more fatal for companies if workloads as envisaged by the IndiaAI Mission don’t come through, he said.
The average L1 hourly GPU price was Rs 612.85 in the first round of empanelment against an average Rs 655.90 in the second round of empanelment. While there has been a decline in price for the same GPUs between the two rounds, the average is higher in the second round because of newer categories of GPUs.
