MeitY Unveils EKA-1, Dhīr 2B and Dhīr 5B AI Models Under IndiaAI

Dhīr 2B and Dhīr 5B, from ZenteiQ, are mixture-of-experts models trained from scratch on Google Cloud Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). They support English and 10 Indian languages and can run directly on tested mobile hardware without an internet connection.

ZenteiQ said it is releasing the model weights under the Apache 2.0 licence, together with technical documentation and evaluation tools, through AIKosh.

Why it matters

MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan said the effort would strengthen India's strategic autonomy in AI and widen the supply of models suited to domestic needs. He pointed to uses in mathematics, coding, scientific research and cybersecurity.

Krishnan put particular weight on air-gapped deployment. "These models can be deployed on air-gapped environments, which means enterprise-based artificial intelligence, which thus far hasn't really taken off, would be possible to do a lot more of that in the country using models like this," he said.

He added that smaller models can improve productivity and efficiency across applications, and that the government will keep supporting their refinement and development. The models are available through AIKosh to researchers, students, innovators, enterprises and the general public, which Krishnan described as a wider national resource.