India, May 11 -- What Went Wrong At Krutrim?

Ola Krutrim began as one of India's boldest AI moonshots in 2023. Three years and a unicorn leap later, the homegrown challenger to OpenAI seems to be dumping its promises of building custom chips and sovereign AI models. So, how did things go wrong at Krutrim?

The Sovereign Ambition: Krutrim quickly rose on the strength of a powerful narrative - India-first AI, multilingual models and a full-stack sovereign tech vision. Unsurprisingly, it became the country's first AI unicorn in early 2024, almost a year after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Indian startups would struggle to build a rival to ChatGPT on limited budgets.

Cracks Emerge: Krutrim tried to do too many things simultaneously. This ...