G42, the UAE-based leading technology holding group, has announced that it will soon launch NANDA – a cutting-edge Hindi Large Language Model (LLM). The announcement was made in the presence of H.H. Sheikh Khaled bin Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, during his state visit to India.
According to a press release, the name NANDA is inspired by one of India’s highest peaks, the Nanda Devi. Hindi is one of the most widely spoken languages in India, which is why NANDA’s release will mark a significant milestone in the realm of AI for India, as it will offer over half a billion Hindi language speakers the opportunity to harness the potential of generative AI.
NANDA is a 13-billion parameter model trained on approximately 2.13 trillion tokens of language datasets, including Hindi. NANDA is the result of a collaboration between Inception (a G42 company), Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence – the world’s first graduate research university dedicated to AI – and Cerebras Systems. The model was trained on Condor Galaxy, one of the world’s most powerful AI supercomputers for training and inferencing built by G42 and Cerebras.
“As the country stands on the brink of AI-powered growth, G42 is proud to contribute to this journey with the launch of NANDA in support of India’s AI ambitions,” says Manu Jain, CEO – G42 India.
“With NANDA, we are heralding a new era of AI inclusivity, ensuring that the rich heritage and depth of Hindi language is represented in the digital and AI landscape. NANDA exemplifies G42’s unwavering commitment to excellence and fostering equitable AI,” says Dr. Andrew Jackson, Acting CEO of Inception, a G42 company.
In August 2023, G42 launched JAIS, the world’s first open-source Arabic LLM. JAIS transformed Arabic Natural Language Processing (NLP), unlocking access to native language generative AI capabilities for over 400 million Arabic speakers globally. With models ranging from 590 million to 70 billion parameters, JAIS set a new standard for linguistic AI which G42 now seeks to replicate for other regions whose languages are still underrepresented.
Building on this success, NANDA extends G42’s mission to empower India’s scientific, academic, and developer communities by accelerating the growth of a vibrant Hindi language AI ecosystem and ensure broad access to AI across the region.