Microsoft-backed G42 unveils Hindi major language model Nanda for India
Microsoft-backed G42, an Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence (AI) technology company, on Tuesday unveiled a Hindi large language model (LLM) for India. The AI model, called Nanda, will be trained on large volumes of datasets in both Hindi, English and Hindi. The generative AI model was developed in collaboration with MBZUAI and Cerebras Systems. The company has not yet announced the use cases for the LLM. Last year, the AI company released the Jais AI model, which was trained on Arabic and English.
G42 unveils Hindi large-language model
In a after On X (formerly known as Twitter), G42 India CEO Manu Kumar Jain unveiled Nanda, the Hindi-language generative AI model. It was unveiled at the UAE-India Business Forum in Mumbai in the presence of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal. The LLM is named after India’s second-highest peak, Nanda Devi.
Jain also highlighted some of the specifications of the LLM. According to the post, Nanda is a 13 billion parameter model trained on around 2.13 trillion tokens of language datasets, including Hindi, English, and Hinglish. The CEO also added that Nanda is a bilingual model and is also proficient in Hinglish, the hybrid language that combines Romanized letters and Devanagari pronunciation.
Currently, the company has not shared a release timeline for the AI model. It is not known whether Nanda will be available in the public domain or reserved for government use. Jain said, “We truly believe that #Nanda can be integrated into the fabric of India. It meets all sovereign requirements and can help take large-scale technology initiatives to new heights. It will enable over half a billion Hindi speakers to harness the potential of generative AI.”
Last year, the AI company launched Jais, an open-source Arabic LLM with Arabic natural language processing (NLP) capabilities. Multiple AI models with up to 70 billion parameters were released. In April, Microsoft invested $1.5 billion (approximately Rs. 12,600 crore) in the company to become a major backer. The Windows maker also took a seat on the board of directors of G42.
