The high cost of creating an LLM from scratch is a well-known fact, and it is one of the primary reasons why India has only a few LLMs, which are also much smaller compared to those in the US, China, or Europe. In fact, in the whole of Europe, there is only one LLM building company, Mistral from France, that can compete with the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. This lack of innovation in India’s AI industry has been attributed to the lack of capital and resources, as well as the focus on vertical applications rather than horizontal ones. Industry leaders, such as Mohandas Pai, have pointed out that it is not feasible for Indian startups to compete in building the largest LLM, as they do not have access to the necessary capital and resources. Additionally, the availability of Indic data is also limited, making it difficult for Indian startups to develop LLMs that can compete with those built in English. This lack of investment in research and development has been a major hindrance for Indian startups, as investors are not willing to put in large sums of money. This is in contrast to countries like France, which have government funds dedicated to fostering innovation and supporting startups. In order for India to catch up with other countries in the AI race, there needs to be a shift towards investing in R&D and providing support for startups in this field.
