Vivek Raghavan, co-founder of Sarvam, emphasizes the need to build sovereign AI capabilities across models, computing infrastructure, and applications as India stands to play a larger role in the global artificial intelligence space.
On India’s AI ambitions, Raghavan said, “India’s AI journey must go beyond consumption to building foundational capabilities across models, computing, and applications. As AI becomes a strategic technology, sovereign innovation will be essential for countries with global ambitions. With India’s strong talent base and growing deep technology ecosystem, we will build scalable and globally relevant AI solutions and We have an important opportunity to play a decisive role in the future of innovation.”
In a discussion with Alok Mittal, he explores the importance of building India’s AI stack with local languages, accessibility, and scale at the core, while highlighting the need for ecosystem-driven innovation.
The conversation focuses on how AI sovereignty needs to be built across multiple layers, spanning models, infrastructure, and “harness” layers that form the user experience and real-world applications.
He also points out that in the AI era, a startup’s long-term differentiation will depend not only on its unique model, but also on how effectively the company can solve customer problems and establish strong vertical ownership.
They further stress that the future of AI in India will depend on building on local language data, strategic ecosystem partnerships, and scalable platforms that enable widespread innovation across sectors.
