Reliance-backed group unveils Hanooman, a series of AI models in Indian language: Report

Hanooman, a series of language models focused on the Indian demographic, was unveiled on Wednesday, February 21, according to a report. The artificial intelligence (AI) models are said to be built by the Reliance Industries-backed BharatGPT group. The group is led by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and seven other IITs. The AI ​​model was reportedly showcased at a recent tech event in Mumbai. This comes just a month after Reliance Jio announced Jio Brain, an AI and machine learning (ML) platform for enterprises.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the consortium plans to release the AI ​​models next month. The Hanooman series of AI models reportedly supports 11 Indian regional languages ​​and will work in healthcare, management, financial services and education. This likely means that the language model has been trained on data that includes these sectors, and as a result the AI ​​tools built using the model will also be proficient in these areas.

While language accessibility is a big focus, Hanooman also comes with multimodal capabilities, including text, speech and video. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, chairman of IIT Bombay’s computer science and engineering department, told Bloomberg that it will also offer speech-to-text capabilities. The aim is to reach people who cannot read and write. The event also reportedly showcased VizzhyGPT, a customized version of the AI ​​model that works in healthcare and is trained on relevant data.

The publication revealed that a demo video was shown at the event in which a mechanic queries a chatbot built using Hanooman in Tamil, a bank employee speaks to it in Hindi and a developer uses it to write codes.

Separately report by the Times of India touts it as open source. He emphasized that the first four language models of the Hanooman series, carrying 1.5 billion, seven billion, 13 billion and 40 billion parameters each, will be available to developers and researchers. It will likely be provided for building specific AI tools such as generalizing chatbots and more. Commercial rights are unlikely to be given for the models as Reliance Jio is reportedly building specific AI tools based on the language model.