Reliance’s Hanooman: AI model backed by Mukesh Ambani to launch in March

The BharatGPT group backed by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd is set to launch its first ChatGPT-style service next month. The group- which includes Reliance and eight affiliated universities- offered a sneak peek of the model which showed a motorcycle mechanic India queried an AI bot in Tamil, a banker talked with the tool in Hindi and a developer used it to write computer code.

What is the AI model called and what is its focus?

The model has been dubbed Hanooman and represents India’s race to develop potentially transformative AI technology. The model will work via 11 local languages in four fields: health care, governance, financial services and education.

How is Hanooman being developed?

The model is being developed in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology universities and is backed by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. Other startups such as Sarvam and Krutrim backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vinod Khosla’s fund, are also building open-sourced AI models for India.

What will Hanooman offer to users?

Hanooman will offer speech-to-text capabilities to the users. The goal is to make it more user-friendly and Reliance Jio will build customized models for specific uses as well. Reliance is already working on Jio Brain- a platform to use AI across a network of about 450 million subscribers.