Krutrim Brings Advanced AI to India with Game-Changing Price Tag Of Just Re.1/Million Tokens

OLA founder Bhavish Aggarwal is betting hard on Artificial Intelligence. Aggarwal's company Krutrim AI just pulled off a world first - bringing the massive DeepSeek R1 AI model to Indian servers. Even better? They're offering it to developers for pocket change - just one rupee per million tokens.

"We've got DeepSeek-R1 671B running on H100s, and we're the first ones to do it anywhere," Aggarwal boasted on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter). He's betting on making this powerhouse AI accessible to India's tech talent.

While the model comes from China, Aggarwal isn't worried. He thinks using open-source tech like this, but hosting it on home turf, is precisely what India needs to catch up in the AI race. The fact that it's running on H100 GPUs in Indian data centers means better speed and tighter security for local users.

The timing couldn't be better. India's tech scene is hungry for affordable AI tools, and at Rs 1 per million tokens (at least for February), Krutrim is serving up a feast. They're going head-to-head with pricier foreign options, giving Indian developers a shot at working with serious AI muscle without breaking the bank.

For those keeping score, the DeepSeek R1 is not lightweight - it's packing 671 billion parameters under the hood. This move by Krutrim isn't just about bringing in new tech; it's about giving India's developers the tools they need to compete globally, all while keeping data and operations local.

It's a bold push to put India on the AI map, and if Aggarwal's track record is anything to go by, we might be watching the start of something big.