Sarvam to build defence AI for Indian Armed Forces: Why India's military is turning to homegrown AI models, explained

Sarvam AI has partnered with India’s Integrated Defence Staff to develop secure AI applications for the Army, Navy and Air Force. The partnership will focus on building secure, sovereign and scalable AI capabilities for the armed forces.

Bengaluru-based Sarvam AI has been roped in by the Indian Armed Forces to build artificial intelligence (AI) applications for the Army, Air Force, and the Indian Navy.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Sarvam and the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS), which comes under the Ministry of Defence.

"HQ Integrated Defence Staff and Sarvam #AI have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on AI applications, research, knowledge management, training and decision-support across the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force," the HQ IDS said in a post on X.

"The partnership will focus on building secure, sovereign and scalable AI capabilities, with strong emphasis on data sovereignty and ensuring responsible AI based solutions," it also said.

This engagement comes as the Indian government seeks to reduce its reliance on foreign technology in sensitive military applications and develop AI systems which can be deployed within India's own security infrastructure.

"Sarvam exists to build AI in India, for India. The core of that mission is to put the country's own intelligence into the systems it depends on," The Economic Times quoted the company's co-founder Pratyush Kumar as saying.

The defence work done by the Bengaluru-based company is done by its firewalled division, Chanakya, which is focussed on mission-critical applications.

What makes Sarvam the go-to firm for security-related AI development is its attempt to combine homegrown foundation models, Indian-language technologies and deployment infrastructure into a single AI stack.

Sayak Basu