India's design in every chip but no India-made chip yet: Ola founder

Ola Founder Bhavish Aggarwal has called out "unique irony" of India having its design imprint on every chip in the world, yet no chip of its own, and said while his announcement on first AI chip for India is a "moonshot", the company is fully confident of delivering on the promise.

In an interaction with PTI editors at the agency's headquarters here, Aggarwal talked at length on his vision behind the bold and ambitious project, and explained why building a chip from scratch is a "risky endeavour". And why he is convinced that Ola Group and AI venture Krutrim can pull off the "moonshot".

 

Aggarwal said the company would not be setting up a fab for its AI chip. Instead, it plans to work with global foundries, say, in Taiwan, Korea or even the American ecosystem.

Conversations are on but not yet finalised, the Ola top boss said, adding, "hopefully somebody puts up a cutting-edge fab in India, and we will be happy to use it."

A vocal advocate of India's digital sovereignty, Aggarwal is leading Krutrim's roadmap for strengthening its full-stack AI capabilities -- foundational models, cloud, and silicon, you name it -- including blueprint for India's first family of chips for AI, General Compute and Edge.

"Every chip in the world passes through India, not physically, but design-wise. Every chip has some design (element) happening in India, but we have no Indian chip. We have the largest number of silicon chip designers in the world, but there is no Indian chip," Aggarwal said, terming the situation a "unique irony".

He added, "So hence, we have decided to build our own chip, and the chip will be an AI chip, as well as a general purpose CPU."

Krutrim -- a Sanskrit word meaning 'artificial' -- has announced a series of strategic partnerships with global majors such as Arm and Untether AI for the development of CPU and AI chips, platforms, and systems. It announced the first family of chips christened 'Bodhi' for AI; 'Sarv' for General Compute; and 'Ojas' for Edge.

The company will design and produce India's first AI silicon chip by 2026 that is custom built for complex AI workloads. According to it, the chip will enable development of faster and more efficient AI systems. Krutrim will also be launching Bodhi 2 by 2028.

"AI is a very important technology of the future, and we in India need to lead this journey. If you look at the current state, I think we are still adopters of somebody else's technology paradigms, especially in the digital world," he said.

Aggarwal has no qualms admitting that building a chip is a "moonshot"; it is a term he used even at Sankalp 2024 -- Ola's annual launch event at its Futurefactory in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu, recently.

"It is a moonshot, but we want to go for it. It is a risky endeavour but we believe we can do it," he said.

Aggarwal says his strength of conviction stems from his belief in Krutrim's technology prowess, and his solid team.

"We have the technology strength. We have built a very strong team, again, leveraging India's strength of talent... And an advantage of our business model... it is a vertically-integrated business model. We are making our own AI, on our own cloud, on our own chip," he pointed out.

For starters, the company will use its chip to cater to its own workloads. Aggarwal highlights the advantage of vertically integrated business model -- own AI, own cloud, on its own chip.

"Unlike Nvidia, which needs to sell chips to others, we will be using our own chip in our own workloads... it is for our vertical integration in the beginning... eventually, we will be offering our chips to other players who want to buy it, whether for their vehicles, whether for their own clouds, whether for their own applications...," Aggarwal said.