Mumbai: Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. and Asia’s richest person, is backing a new artificial intelligence (AI) model that aims to provide a ChatGPT-style service for India. The model, named Hanooman after the half-monkey Hindu deity, is set to launch in March 2024, in collaboration with eight Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) universities and the Indian government.
Hanooman is a large language model (LLM) that can generate natural language responses based on user queries. It can also offer speech-to-text capabilities, making it more accessible and user-friendly. Hanooman is designed to work with 11 local languages, covering various domains such as health care, governance, financial services, and education.
According to a press release by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., the wireless carrier arm of Reliance Industries, Hanooman is a “different genre of LLMs” that aims to overcome computational constraints and offer a simpler and affordable model for smaller businesses and government departments. Hanooman is also expected to be a transformative AI technology for India, as it will foster a culture of inclusivity and break down barriers to communication.
The BharatGPT group, the consortium behind Hanooman, offered a sneak peek of the model on Tuesday during a technology conference in Mumbai. In a video played before the delegates, a motorcycle mechanic in southern India queried an AI bot in his native Tamil, a banker conversed with the tool in Hindi, and a developer in Hyderabad used it to write computer code.
The launch of Hanooman is a big step in India’s ambitions to become a player in the field of AI, which is dominated by Silicon Valley companies like OpenAI. It also reflects the ongoing efforts of Reliance Industries to invest in emerging technologies and digital services. Mukesh Ambani has previously stated that he wants to make Reliance a “technology-first” company and a “leader in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
Hanooman is not the only AI model being developed in India. A number of startups, such as Sarvam and Krutrim, are also building open-sourced AI models customized for India, backed by prominent venture capital investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and billionaire Vinod Khosla’s fund.
The launch of Hanooman coincides with the International Mother Language Day, which celebrates linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. The BharatGPT group hopes that Hanooman will promote the linguistic rights and aspirations of all people, especially those who speak non-dominant languages, languages of minority groups, and indigenous languages. As UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said, “Languages are who we are; by protecting them, we protect ourselves.”
