Tata Group, Reliance Partner With Nvidia To Build AI Supercomputers

In a major development, leading US chipmaker Nvidia Corp on Friday declared separate alliances with Tata Group companies and Reliance in a bid to help them develop AI-powered supercomputers, AI clouds, and generative AI applications.

Jio Platforms Ltd is expected to build a framework for local-language deployment of generative AI and Tata Communications Ltd will emphasise on building an AI cloud for its clients. Meanwhile, Tata group IT & Software company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will also make optimum use of Nvidia's AI computing infrastructure to develop generative AI applications for its clients.

According to Jio Platforms, alliance with Nvidia Corp will be aimed "to develop India's own foundational large language model (LLM) trained on diverse languages."

On the other hand, Tata Communications seeks to build an AI cloud that it plans to provide to its clients in an infrastructure-as-a-service model. An AI cloud is a remote computing platform built particularly for the development and deployment of AI applications and use cases, which, in this case, will be powered by Nvidia's GH200 AI chip. Jio's AI infrastructure will also use the same chip.

TCS is reportedly planning to build its own AI infrastructure in partnership with Nvidia's on-cloud compute access, using which it will develop generative AI applications for its clients. Earlier, TCS chief executive K. Krithivasan said during June quarter earnings call that the company is seeing soaring interest in generative AI-with 50 pilots and research projects, as well as over 100 real-life projects in the service provider's pipeline.

Few days before the announcement, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang had a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday. NVIDIA has four engineering development centres in the country - in Gurugram, Hyderabad, Pune and Bengaluru -with over 3,800 employees, according to media reports.

Nvidia Corp's collaboration with Reliance will "develop India's own foundation large language model trained on the nation's diverse languages and tailored for generative AI applications to serve the world's most populous nation," according to a PTI report.

"To serve India's vast potential in AI, Reliance will create AI applications and services for their 450 million Jio customers and provide energy-efficient AI infrastructure to scientists, developers and startups across India," the statement said.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said India "has data, scale and talent", adding that through its partnership with Reliance Industries' Jio Platforms, Nvidia will "build state-of-the-art AI supercomputers in India." Jio Platforms will also use Nvidia's DGX Cloud supercomputer-on-cloud service as part of its AI infrastructure. The latter will be hosted across suitable data centres across the country, accounting for a total data centre capacity of over 2,000MW. Reliance Jio will handle the execution, implementation and marketing of the infrastructure, while Nvidia will serve solely as a technology partner.

Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, Akash Ambani said the infrastructure will be "secure, sustainable and deeply relevant across India".

Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, asserted, "As India advances from a country of data proliferation to creating technology infrastructure for widespread and accelerated growth, computing and technology super centres... will provide catalytic growth."

"The advancements in AI have made focus on AI a central priority in governments, industries and society at large. The impact of AI and machine learning is going to be profound across industries and every aspect of our lives. This is a key transformational trend of the decade, and every company must prepare to make this AI transition," said N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons.