Nvidia reaches deal with Reliance, Tata to bet deeper on India’s AI

BENGALURU, Sept 8 (Reuters) – U.S. chip company Nvidia NVDA.O on Friday announced AI partnerships with Indian conglomerates Reliance Industries and Tata Group to develop infrastructure cloud layer and language model, as well as general applications.

The deals with two of India’s largest business groups will help the US chip company penetrate deeper into the South Asian country’s emerging AI ecosystem, just as it faces challenges. barriers to exporting certain chips to China and some other countries due to US restrictions.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang this week met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss India’s potential in AI, just ahead of the G20 meeting in New Delhi, where delegates included US President Joe Biden is in attendance.

In the Reliance partnership, Nvidia will provide the computing power needed to build the cloud AI infrastructure platform, while Reliance (RELI.NS) unit Jio will manage and maintain the facility. infrastructure as well as monitoring customer interactions.

Nvidia said: “Reliance will create AI applications and services for its 450 million Jio (telecom) customers and provide energy-efficient AI infrastructure for scientists, developers and startups across India”.

In a statement, the two companies said Nvidia’s partnership will be used by India’s No. 1 software services exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS.NS), to build and process applications. Using synthetic AI and supercomputers. TCS will also upskill its 600,000-strong workforce by leveraging the partnership.

The deal will also catalyze AI-led transformation across Tata Group companies, from manufacturing to consumer businesses, the statement added.

Nvidia has a near monopoly globally on the computer systems used to power services like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s blockbuster AI chatbot. The AI ​​that powers such applications is known as a large language model because it takes a text prompt and from there writes out a human-like response.

Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, has previously mentioned the need for “digital infrastructure in India that can meet the immense computing needs of AI”.

The partnership will give Reliance access to the latest version of Nvidia’s Grace Hopper Superchip, AI chips optimized to perform AI inference functions that help efficiently power applications like ChatGPT.

Reliance said the new AI infrastructure will accelerate a series of key Indian AI projects, including chatbots, drug discovery and climate research.

Neil Shah, a partner at Counterpoint Research, said the AI ​​move is important for Jio to “make sense” of the data it has from millions of users and become a technology company that offers services beyond telecom .

“The AI ​​infrastructure will enable it to provide accurate recommendations and cross-sell products and services across its huge network of customers in retail, telecommunications and finance,” he said. .

Reuters on Friday exclusively reported that Reliance is also considering entering the semiconductor manufacturing sector in India.

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