The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has awarded the tenders for the transformational Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) procurement project, announced earlier in January, for around Rs 10,000 crore to procure 15,000 GPUs, according to a report by ET. The three companies that have made it to the final list are Hiranandani Group’s Yotta Data Services, E2E Networks, and NxtGen Cloud Technologies. 

The three companies will provide AI compute units to startups, academic institutions, and organizations selected by the ministry to access GPUs at a subsidized rate. The government aims to keep the charges as low as less than a USD an hour, the lowest rate across the world. GPUs, being the most demanding today, present make-or-break situations for nations' and companies' AI aspirations. 

The Suppliers 

While E2E Networks and NxtGen emerged as the lowest (L1) bidders in the categories offering to supply GPUs, Yotta was ranked as the second-lowest bidder. According to the tender terms, if a company requests a specific number of GPUs of a particular model and the L1 bidders are unable to fulfill the order, the next lowest bidder is approached to meet the demand.

Quantities offered 

Among the 3 companies that have integrated with the IndiaAI Compute Portal of the government, Yotta has offered to supply 9,216 GPUs, while E2E has offered 1,353 GPUs and NxtGen 1,088 GPUs, the ET report states.