Nvidia Strikes Deals with Reliance, Tata in Deepening India AI Bet

A Nvidia logo is seen on one of their products on display at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
A Nvidia logo is seen on one of their products on display at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
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Nvidia Strikes Deals with Reliance, Tata in Deepening India AI Bet

A Nvidia logo is seen on one of their products on display at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
A Nvidia logo is seen on one of their products on display at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)

US chip firm Nvidia on Friday announced AI partnerships with Indian conglomerates Reliance Industries and Tata Group to develop cloud infrastructure and language models, as well as generative applications.

The deals with two of India's largest business houses will help the US chip firm deepen inroads to the emerging AI ecosystem of the South Asian nation, just as it faces roadblocks in certain chip exports to China and some other countries due to US restrictions.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang this week met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss India's potential in the AI sector, just ahead of the G20 meet in New Delhi where delegates including US President Joe Biden are attending.

In the Reliance partnership, Nvidia will provide the computing power required for building a cloud AI infrastructure platform, while Reliance unit Jio will manage and maintain the infrastructure and oversee customer engagement.

"Reliance will create AI applications and services for their 450 million Jio (telecom) customers and provide energy-efficient AI infrastructure to scientists, developers and startups across India," Nvidia said.

The Nvidia partnership will be used by India's No.1 software services exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, to build and process generative AI apps and a supercomputer, the companies said in a statement. TCS will also upskill its 600,000-strong workforce by leveraging the partnership.

The deal will also catalyze the AI-led transformation across Tata Group companies that range from manufacturing to consumer businesses, the statement added.

Nvidia globally has a near-monopoly on the computing systems used to power services like ChatGPT, OpenAI's blockbuster generative AI chatbot. The AI powering such apps is known as a large language model because it takes in a text prompt and from that writes a human-like response.

Reliance's Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest person, has previously talked up the need of "digital infrastructure in India that can handle AI's immense computational demands".

The partnership will give Reliance access to the latest version of Nvidia's Grace Hopper Superchip, its AI chips that are optimized to perform AI inference functions that effectively power apps like ChatGPT.

Reliance said the new AI infrastructure will speed up a range of India's key AI projects, including chatbots, drug discovery, and climate research.

Neil Shah, a partner at Counterpoint Research, said the AI move is critical for Jio to "make sense" of the data it has from millions of users, and become a tech company providing services beyond telecom.

"The AI infra will enable it to provide accurate recommendations and cross sell products and services across its giant network of clients in retail, telecom, and financial space," he said.

Reuters on Friday exclusively reported that Reliance is also considering a foray into semiconductor manufacturing in India.



Google Preparing to Partner with Taiwan's MediaTek on Next AI chip, Information Reports

A signage for Google is displayed near their office in Beijing, China, 04 February 2025. (EPA)
A signage for Google is displayed near their office in Beijing, China, 04 February 2025. (EPA)
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Google Preparing to Partner with Taiwan's MediaTek on Next AI chip, Information Reports

A signage for Google is displayed near their office in Beijing, China, 04 February 2025. (EPA)
A signage for Google is displayed near their office in Beijing, China, 04 February 2025. (EPA)

Alphabet's Google is preparing to partner with Taiwan's MediaTek on the next version of its AI chips, Tensor Processing Units, that will be made next year, the Information reported on Monday, citing people involved in the project.

However, Google has not cut ties with Broadcom, the chip designer it has worked with exclusively on the AI chips over the past several years, the report said, citing an employee at the San Jose-based company.

Like Nvidia,. Google also designs its own AI server chips, which it uses for internal research and development and also rents out to cloud customers, Reuters reported.

This approach gives Google a competitive edge in the AI race by reducing its reliance on Nvidia, even as rivals like Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Meta Platforms have seen a surge in demand for Nvidia chips.

Late last year, Google rolled out its sixth-generation TPU in a bid to give itself and its Cloud customers an alternative to Nvidia's chips, which are the most sought-after processors in the industry.

Google chose MediaTek partly because the Taiwanese firm has a strong relationship with TSMC and charges Google less per chip compared to Broadcom, the Information report added.

Google spent between $6 billion and $9 billion on TPUs last year, according to research firm Omdia, based on Broadcom's target for AI semiconductor revenue last year.