New Delhi: Indian artificial intelligence startup Sarvam on Tuesday announced a five-year agreement with the Ministry of Defence to develop and deploy AI applications across the armed forces, with a focus on operational capabilities, decision support and training.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed with Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS), establishes an umbrella framework for AI projects across the three services, as well as joint, tri-service and integrated organisations under HQ IDS.
“Sarvam has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS), Ministry of Defence, setting up an umbrella framework for AI projects across the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, and the Indian Air Force. The framework also extends to the joint, tri-service, and integrated organisations under HQ IDS,” a release said.
Under the agreement, Sarvam will design, develop and deploy AI applications catering to operational, training and decision-support requirements of the armed forces, besides providing technical support.
According to the release, the MoU advances the Ministry of Defence’s direction on military AI: India’s armed forces are building their own AI layer that runs across the services, developed with Indian partners.
“The focus areas are decision support, target acquisition and data fusion across the sensor-to-shooter loop, with human oversight retained on operational decisions, so that the AI layer for the Services is built in India and deployed on sovereign infrastructure,” the release added.
The framework will enable the three Services to access common AI foundation models, agentic infrastructure, geospatial and perception systems, allowing capabilities and lessons from projects undertaken by one Service to be applied across others.
The projects will be executed through Chanakya, Sarvam’s “firewalled division focused on national security and defence”.
Chanakya will apply Sarvam’s AI stack, including foundation models such as Sarvam 105B.
“Sarvam exists to build AI in India, for India. The core of that mission is to put the country’s own intelligence into the systems it depends on,” Sarvam co-founder Pratyush Kumar said.