India’s national AI mission is offering subsidised GPU computing at some of the world’s lowest prices, in a bid to make AI development affordable for startups and researchers.

The IndiaAI common compute pool now has over 38,000 GPUs across 10 empanelled providers, including Yotta, Jio, Tata Communications, E2E Networks and CtrlS. The standard rate is Rs 115.85 per GPU-hour, with H100 chips at about Rs 150. A subsidy of up to 40 per cent brings the effective price below Rs 100 an hour for projects of national importance.

That compares with $2 to 4 an hour for similar capacity on global cloud platforms like AWS and Azure. The mission targets 100,000 GPUs by the end of 2026, with a total outlay of Rs 10,371 crore, of which Rs 4,563.36 crore is earmarked for compute.

Officials say cheap compute is meant to stop Indian AI talent from depending on foreign clouds and to seed a domestic foundation-model ecosystem.