Sarvam AI

Sarvam AI
Company typePrivate
IndustryArtificial intelligence
FoundedAugust 2023 (2023-08)
FoundersVivek Raghavan; Pratyush Kumar
HeadquartersBengaluru, Karnataka, India
Area served
India
ProductsLarge language models; Speech recognition systems; Vision-language models
Websitehttps://www.sarvam.ai/ (Main Website)

Sarvam AI is an Indian artificial intelligence company headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Founded in 2023, the company develops large language models (LLMs) and multimodal AI systems with a focus on Indian languages and region-specific use cases.[1]

The company has received venture capital backing and has participated in government-supported AI initiatives, including India's sovereign large language model programme under the IndiaAI Mission.[2]

History

Sarvam AI was founded in August 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, who were previously associated with AI4Bharat at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.[1] In December 2023, the company announced a combined seed and Series A funding round of approximately US$41 million. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures.[3]

In April 2025, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) selected Sarvam AI as one of the companies to develop an indigenous foundational model under the IndiaAI Mission.[4] As part of the initiative, the company received access to government-supported computing infrastructure, including GPUs allocated for model training over a specified period.[4]

In February 2026, Sarvam AI introduced two large language models at the AI Impact Summit held at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.[5]

Products and technology

Sarvam AI develops language models trained on datasets that include multiple Indian languages and code-mixed text. The company uses mixture-of-experts (MoE) architectures in some of its models.[5]

Foundational language models

On 18 February 2026, the company announced the release of two foundational models:

  • Sarvam-30B – A 30-billion parameter model based on a mixture-of-experts design. According to company disclosures reported by the media, the model activates approximately 1 billion parameters per token and supports a 32,000-token context window.[5]
  • Sarvam-105B – A 105-billion parameter model activating approximately 9 billion parameters per token, with a 128,000-token context window. The model is positioned for complex reasoning and enterprise applications.[6]

On 20th February 2026, the company released a beta version of the Sarvam-105B model which is named Indus. It is available on the Apple App Store, Google Play Store and the web.[7]

Speech and vision systems

Sarvam AI has also developed multimodal systems including speech-to-text and vision-language models. Its speech model, referred to as Saaras V3 in company materials, supports multiple Indian languages.[8]

The company has also introduced a vision-language model known as Sarvam Vision, intended for document understanding and optical character recognition (OCR) in Indian scripts.[9]

Startup support

In March 2026, Sarvam AI launched the Sarvam Startup Program, an initiative providing selected early-stage companies with 6–12 months of API credits scaled to their needs, priority engineering support, and access to production infrastructure for developing multilingual AI applications in areas such as speech, translation, and large language models.[10][11]

Open Source Release

In February 2026, Sarvam AI announced and open-sourced two large language models: Sarvam 30B (30 billion parameters) and Sarvam 105B (105 billion parameters, using a Mixture-of-Experts architecture with 10.3 billion active parameters). Both models were trained from scratch on datasets focused on Indian languages and support advanced reasoning, multilingual tasks, mathematics, and coding.[12][13] The models are hosted on Hugging Face under the Apache License and are intended for enterprise and developer applications in Indian languages.[14]

The models were subsequently released as open source under the Apache License 2.0, with model weights made available on Hugging Face (sarvamai/sarvam-30b and sarvamai/sarvam-105b) and AIKosh in early March 2026.[15][16][17]

Devices

'Sarvam Kaze' is an indigenous AI-powered wearable glass that listens, understands, and captures what users see the world through their eyes in real time. The device supports more than 10 Indian languages, enabling voice-based interaction and potentially real-time translation. The company plans to launch the device in May 2026.[18]

Government and institutional collaborations

In 2025, Sarvam AI was selected to contribute to India's sovereign AI model initiative under the IndiaAI Mission.[2] The initiative aims to support domestic AI infrastructure and model development.

In March 2025, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) announced a collaboration with Sarvam AI to integrate AI-based voice interactions and multilingual support into Aadhaar-related services.[19]

Sarvam AI has also worked with AI4Bharat and academic institutions on language datasets and speech research projects.[20]

Industry participation

Sarvam AI presented its foundational models at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi.[5] The company has also been listed among Indian members of the AI Alliance, a consortium focused on open-source artificial intelligence initiatives.[21]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Singh, Manish (6 December 2023). "Five-month-old Indian AI startup Sarvam scores $41M funding". TechCrunch.
  2. ^ a b "Sarvam AI to build India's first sovereign LLM with reasoning and voice capabilities". The Indian Express. 27 April 2025.
  3. ^ "AI startup Sarvam AI raises $41 million from Lightspeed, Khosla Ventures". Mint. 6 December 2023.
  4. ^ a b Gupta, Aman (26 April 2025). "MeitY picks Sarvam AI to lead India's sovereign LLM effort; Vaishnaw vows global competition". Mint.
  5. ^ a b c d "Sarvam AI launches 30B and 105B models tailored for India-focused deployment". Fortune India. 18 February 2026.
  6. ^ Vaitheeswaran, B. (19 February 2026). "Sarvam rolls out 105-bn parameter AI LLM model". The Times of India.
  7. ^ "Indus AI app: Sarvam launches desi ChatGPT rival on app stores". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 2026-02-20.
  8. ^ "Sarvam Models Overview". Sarvam AI. Retrieved 20 February 2026.
  9. ^ "India's Sarvam AI Emerges in Sovereign AI Race". BIS Research. 10 February 2026.
  10. ^ "Sarvam AI launches startup programme: Here's all about it and what it offers". CNBC TV18. 6 March 2026. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  11. ^ "Sarvam AI Launches Startup Programme To Support Early-Stage Companies (via LinkedIn post reference, but use full article if available)". Analytics India Magazine. March 2026. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  12. ^ "Indian AI lab Sarvam's new models are a major bet on the viability of open source AI". TechCrunch. 18 February 2026. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  13. ^ "Open-Sourcing Sarvam 30B and 105B". Sarvam AI. 6 March 2026. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  14. ^ "sarvamai/sarvam-105b". Hugging Face. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  15. ^ "Open-Sourcing Sarvam 30B and 105B". Sarvam AI. 6 March 2026. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  16. ^ "sarvamai/sarvam-105b". Hugging Face. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  17. ^ "Sarvam takes on Google, OpenAI and Anthropic; launches 105-billion parameter open-source model for India". The Times of India. 18 February 2026. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  18. ^ "What is Sarvam Kaze? India's first indigenous glasses PM Modi wore at AI Impact Summit 2026". Wion. Retrieved 2026-02-20.
  19. ^ Vishwakarma, Sumit (19 March 2025). "UIDAI partners with Bengaluru-based Sarvam AI to enhance user experience of Aadhaar services". Indian Startup News.
  20. ^ "IIT Madras, AI4Bharat, and Sarvam AI launch IndicVoices". IndiaAI. 28 November 2024.
  21. ^ "AI Alliance adds 7 Indian members including Infosys, AI4Bharat & Sarvam AI". Business Standard. 18 September 2024.
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