New Delhi: Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity AI, has pledged $1 million along with his five hours of weekly personal involvement to support India’s growing ambitions in artificial intelligence (AI). This commitment, shared via a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), highlights his strong dedication to advancing India’s AI capabilities and helping the country compete on the global stage.
Building a Competitive AI Tea
Srinivas stressed the importance of building a robust team that can outperform China’s DeepSeek AI models. He stated that if his team manages to deliver better results than DeepSeek R1 on all benchmarks, he is willing to increase his investment by an additional $10 million. This ambitious goal reflects his confidence in India’s potential to lead in AI research and development.
Balancing AI Infrastructure and Model Training
In his posts, Srinivas also responded critically to Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani’s suggestion to focus mainly on AI infrastructure instead of training large language models (LLMs). Srinivas argued that India must work on both fronts — building infrastructure and training AI models — to remain competitive globally. He emphasized, “Ignoring model training skills in favor of building on existing models is a mistake. India needs to develop its own globally competitive AI models, not just those optimized for Indic languages.”
Misconceptions About AI Training Costs
Srinivas highlighted common misconceptions regarding the costs of AI model training. He referenced China’s recent AI breakthroughs, which demonstrate that significant progress is achievable without huge investments. This challenges the narrative that developing advanced AI requires only massive funding. Srinivas believes smarter strategies and dedication can also lead to success.
Open Invitation for Collaboration
While Srinivas does not intend to personally lead a project similar to DeepSeek, he offered his support to anyone “obsessed enough” to take on the challenge of creating competitive AI models. He expressed hope that such efforts would be open-sourced under an MIT license, promoting transparency and collaboration in the AI community.
Significance for India’s AI Future
This announcement by Srinivas marks a significant step in India’s journey toward becoming a global player in AI technology. His personal investment and active involvement showcase the role of private innovators in supporting the country’s technological growth. As AI continues to reshape economies and societies worldwide, initiatives like these could help India develop homegrown AI solutions and compete internationally.
Key Highlights
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$1 million pledged by Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas to support India’s AI goals.
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Will dedicate five hours weekly to oversee progress.
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Ready to invest $10 million more if performance exceeds Chinese DeepSeek AI benchmarks.
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Emphasizes the need to balance AI infrastructure and model training.
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Challenges misconceptions about high AI training costs using China’s success as an example.
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Encourages open-source collaboration for India’s AI development.