• Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas pledges $1M and time to support Indian AI teams in building globally competitive training models.
  • Srinivas urges India to focus on developing AI models, comparing the effort to ISRO’s success in space exploration.

Aravind Srinivas, the Indian-origin CEO of Perplexity AI, has pledged $1 million and five hours of his weekly time to support qualified teams working to advance artificial intelligence in India.

In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Srinivas emphasized the importance of building AI training models within India, rather than focusing solely on artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

“I am ready to invest $1 million personally and 5 hours/week of my time into the most qualified group of people that can do this right now for making India great again in the context of AI. Consider this as a commitment that cannot be backtracked,” Srinivas stated.

He even said that the selected team must work with an "obsessed" mindset and release their models under an open-source MIT license.

Srinivas also revealed an additional incentive: if the team surpasses the achievements of Chinese AI firm DeepSeek on key benchmarks, he would contribute another $10 million.

The CEO’s remarks come after he criticized Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani’s suggestion that Indian AI startups focus on practical applications rather than developing large language models (LLMs). Srinivas argued that India risks falling behind in global AI development by adopting a narrow approach.

"India fell into the same trap I did while running Perplexity—thinking models are going to cost a ton of money to train," Srinivas said, urging India to invest in building globally competitive AI models.

He likened the effort to the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) success in space exploration, drawing praise from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

In his posts, Srinivas called for a strategic shift in India's AI priorities, advocating for the creation of models that support Indic languages and perform well on international benchmarks. This, he argued, would position India as a global leader in AI innovation.

Edited by Harshajit Sarmah