India Targets 2026 for Its First Domestic AI Chip Development

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Ola, an Indian automotive company, is venturing into AI chip development with its artificial intelligence branch, Krutrim, planning to launch India’s first domestically designed AI chip by 2026. The company is leveraging ARM architecture for this initiative. CEO Bhavish Aggarwal emphasizes the importance of India developing its own AI technology rather than relying on external sources.

While detailed specifications are limited, Ola claims these chips will offer competitive performance and efficiency. For manufacturing, the company plans to partner with a global tier I or II foundry, possibly TSMC or Samsung. “We are still exploring foundries, we will go with a global tier I or II foundry. Taiwan is a global leader, and so is Korea. I visited Taiwan a couple of months back and the ecosystem is keen on partnering with India,” Aggarwal said.

Ola has announced several AI chips for various applications:

  • Bodhi-1: A mid-range chip for large language models and inferencing, set for 2026 release.
  • Bodhi-2: A more advanced chip for high-end AI workloads, aimed at exa-scale computing, planned for 2028.
  • Ojas: India’s first edge AI chip, likely to be used in Ola’s future electric vehicles.
  • Sarv-1: A cloud-native CPU for cloud computing applications, potentially featuring ARM Neoverse N3 cores.

Ola recently announced strategic partnerships with Arm and Canadian Untether AI to build the chips.

“Our goal is to push the boundaries of AI chip performance by 2028. This is a bold and ambitious project, but we are committed to delivering our first AI chip for India by 2026”, CEO Bhavish Aggarwal stated.