India’s AI ecosystem is heating up as the Indus AI chat app officially launches, marking a major move by homegrown startup Sarvam to compete with global artificial intelligence leaders. The new platform aims to deliver AI services tailored specifically for India’s languages and users, positioning the company in a rapidly expanding market dominated by international players.

The launch reflects India’s growing importance in the global AI landscape, where domestic companies are increasingly building local alternatives to foreign technologies.

Indus AI Chat App Launch Signals Growing AI Competition in India

The Indus AI chat app, developed by Indian AI startup Sarvam, is now available in beta for web and mobile users. The application serves as a conversational interface for Sarvam’s newly introduced Sarvam 105B model, a large language model featuring 105 billion parameters.

Sarvam unveiled both its 105B and 30B models earlier this week at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, where the company also shared its enterprise roadmap, hardware strategy, and key industry partnerships. The startup announced collaborations with HMD to bring AI capabilities to Nokia feature phones and with Bosch for AI-powered automotive applications.

The app allows users to interact with the system through text or voice queries and receive responses in both text and audio formats. Users can sign in using their phone number or existing accounts from Google, Microsoft, or Apple. Currently, the service is limited to India.

India Emerges as a Key Battleground for Generative AI

The Indus AI chat app launch comes at a time when India is becoming a crucial market for generative AI adoption. According to statements from industry leaders, India is witnessing massive user growth across major AI platforms.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently revealed that ChatGPT has over 100 million weekly active users in India. Meanwhile, research shared by Anthropic shows that India accounts for 5.8% of total usage of its Claude AI platform, second only to the United States.

These figures highlight India’s expanding influence in shaping global AI adoption and explain why both international and domestic firms are investing heavily in the region.

Features and Current Limitations of Indus AI Chat App

While the Indus AI chat app offers multilingual conversational capabilities, the platform currently has certain limitations. Users cannot delete their chat history without removing their account entirely, and there is no option to disable the app’s reasoning feature, which may sometimes slow responses.

Sarvam has also indicated that access may initially be limited due to restricted compute capacity. The company plans to gradually expand availability while collecting user feedback to refine the system.

Sarvam co-founder Pratyush Kumar said the rollout would occur in phases, with some users potentially placed on a waitlist as infrastructure scales.

Sarvam’s Vision for India-Centric AI Infrastructure

Founded in 2023, Sarvam has raised $41 million from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Peak XV Partners, and Khosla Ventures. The startup is focused on building AI models tailored specifically for India’s linguistic diversity and local needs.

The Indus AI chat app represents part of a broader effort by Indian startups to develop domestic AI infrastructure and reduce reliance on global platforms. As India seeks greater technological independence, companies like Sarvam are working to create locally optimised solutions across enterprise, consumer, and industrial use cases.

The launch also underscores a broader shift in the global AI race, where regional players are emerging to compete with established international firms by addressing local markets more directly.