SUMMARY
Founded in 2019, Soket AI spent its early years exploring AI opportunities and collecting datasets before zeroing in on building India’s very own LLM with a multilingual focus
After Sam Altman’s 2023 remark doubting India’s ability to build ChatGPT-level AI, founder Abhishek Upperwal was spurred into action, accelerating Soket AI’s efforts under Project EKA to develop foundational models with academic partners
Now selected under India’s INR 10,037 Cr IndiaAI Mission, Soket AI is building an Indic-focussed LLM, while generating revenue through TensorStudio, its real-time speech API product
The month was June. The year: 2023. It had already been a little over six months since the world had woken up to the new normal in the realm of AI and ChatGPT. However, June 7 was different. The man behind ChatGPT, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, had visited India. We welcomed Altman with open arms, but only to be told that it was “hopeless” to compete with them.
Something ticked off Abhishek Upperwal that day, and this ruffling of his feathers resulted in what India would come to know as SoketAI, a startup that will, in the not-so-distant future, help India make its very own LLM — India’s answer to the ChatGPTs of the world.
Cut to January 2025. Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that the country would endeavour to build a domestic large language model (LLM) as part of the INR 10,037 Cr IndiaAI Mission.
Proposals were invited, and the stakeholders of the AI industry, including startups, formed a beeline to take part in the opportunity to build an AI-ready nation.
Among the hundreds of Indian AI players seeking to make history was Bengaluru-based Soket AI, a relatively younger player that specialises in text-based LLMs.
Stars aligned, and the 2019-founded Soket AI is now one of the four startups, alongside Sarvam AI, Gnani.ai, and Gan.ai, to have been selected by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to develop Indian LLMs.
Two months before its selection, Inc42 stumbled upon the chance to speak with founder and CEO Upperwal, who shared that the startup was building an open-source foundational model under Project EKA.
Back then, Soket AI was already collaborating with academic institutions, like IIT Gandhinagar and IIT Roorkee, under Project EKA to develop a 120 Bn-parameter foundational model.
However, the only missing link in its endeavour to build a foundational AI model was the government’s support. This is because R&D was a major cost head for Upperwal, and with the Centre’s support, it has become easy to walk through one of the most difficult terrains of the AI building journey.
Notably, the government is set to provide computational support for building the LLM.
With this, the Soket AI team is now ready to fast-track development. It is committed to delivering the first iteration of its Indic languages-focussed LLM within 12 months.
If not for Altman’s controversial statement, Upperwal would have remained stuck in the paradox of searching for a product or perhaps never finding one at all.
The Product Paradox
Destiny had something else planned for Upperwal. The founder, who positions Soket AI as one of the first Indian startups to build a globally competitive text-based LLM, had no idea what he was going to build until a few years ago. But one thing was certain — his drive to work in the area of AI.
Upperwal, a data scientist and a 2018 IISc graduate, incorporated Soket AI in February 2019, the venture did not see any activity for at least the next three years.
This is simply because problem-solving in the realm of AI requires access to large-scale datasets, and for Upperwal, a fresh graduate with zilch financial backing, it was next to impossible to gather resources to build something concrete.
Therefore, he focussed on getting access to datasets. As luck would have it, the Centre was building 100 smart cities back then. The aim was to integrate command and control centres, smart waste management, installation of more CCTV cameras in public places, and more.
Upperwal saw this as a great opportunity, given that smart signals, smart roads, and more technology enablement across cities generated huge amounts of unused data.
His manifestation paved the way for him to work for the Smart Cities Mission, under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. It was during this time that an epiphany dawned upon him — connect all the smart cities and create a decentralised data exchange using peer-to-peer technology.
While this was just an idea, not much breakthrough was made by Upperwal.
Months passed, and the world woke up to a technological marvel in the form of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022.
Months passed again, but to no avail. He knew it was time for him to think in sync with the changing equations around the world, courtesy AI.
Finally, the day of Sam Altman’s reality check hit Upperwal hard. He found his true calling
Source: www.inc42.com
