Codenamed Hanooman, India’s version of ChatGPT is poised to mark a significant milestone in the country’s quest to harness the power of AI technology. This project, named after the revered half-monkey deity from Hindu mythology, is part of a collaborative effort led by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries alongside India’s premier engineering institutions.
Next month, this coalition, known as BharatGPT, plans to unveil its ChatGPT-like service. The consortium, which includes Reliance Industries’ arm and eight associated universities, recently showcased the advanced language model at a tech conference in Mumbai. Demonstrations included a motorcycle mechanic from southern India interacting with the AI in Tamil, a banker using Hindi for communication, and a Hyderabad-based developer employing it for coding tasks.
Hanooman aims to significantly propel India forward in the global AI development race, offering services in 11 local languages across critical sectors such as healthcare, governance, financial services, and education. This initiative is a joint venture with the Indian Institutes of Technology, supported by Reliance Jio Infocomm and the Centre.
Furthermore, Hanooman is designed to enhance accessibility through speech-to-text features, addressing the needs of millions who are illiterate in a population exceeding 1.4 billion. Reliance Jio plans to tailor specific models for various applications, leveraging its extensive subscriber base to integrate AI solutions through the Jio Brain platform.
Large Language Models (LLMs) like Hanooman utilize generative AI to process extensive data sets, delivering coherent and contextually relevant responses. BharatGPT’s project stands out as the country’s first major private-public partnership in AI, bringing together significant contributors from different sectors to achieve a common goal.
