IIT Madras, Ziroh Labs to set up Centre of AI Research

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ (IIT Madras) Pravartak Technologies has partnered with Ziroh Labs, a deep-tech startup, to set up a Centre of AI Research (COAIR). The objective of the proposed infrastructure is to focus on accessible artificial intelligence (AI) for developers, businesses and researchers, as per the official statement.

The partnership between the IIT Madras' Pravartak and California-based startup will also be used to develop practical, efficient AI solutions, focusing on CPU and edge device inference.

Ziroh Labs has also unveiled ‘Kompact AI’, a platform that enables foundational models to be built and served using CPUs without requiring GPU (Graphic Processing Units) at an event, today.

V Kamakoti, director, IIT Madras , said: “Nature has taught us that one can effectively acquire knowledge and subsequently infer in only a limited set of domains. Attempts to acquire everything under the universe are not sustainable and bound to fail over a period of time.”

The newly-launched AI-driven platform ‘Kompact AI’ is aligned with India’s “AI for ALL’ missions. Notably, till now, Ziroh Labs has optimised 17 AI models, including DeepSeek, Qwen and Llama, to run efficiently on CPUs. These models have been benchmarked with IIT Madras, evaluating both quantitative performance and qualitative accuracy. “For the first time, high-performance AI is built and deployed efficiently on CPUs, making AI more accessible, scalable, and cost-effective,” the institute said.

Recently, the IIT Madras has developed a real-time indoor mapping device to generate exact maps under any lighting or environmental conditions.

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Kompact AI

V Kamakoti; Whitfield Diffie, fellow of the royal society and turing awardee; Scott McNealy, founder of sun microsystems; William J Raduchel, former CTO of AOL Time Warner and Chief Strategy Officer at Sun Microsystems; S Sadagopan, former director, IIIT-Bangalore and Raj Singh, founder, APIGee, Cerrent, Fiberlanem, alongside other students, faculty and researchers also took part in the event.

“Ziroh Labs team showcased Kompact AI’s unique capabilities during the event and demonstrated how it redefines AI development on top of CPUs by eliminating dependency on GPUs,” the institute said.

Madhusudhanan B, principal consultant - IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation, said: “By making AI models executable on CPUs, we are unlocking the potential of AI without the heavy infrastructure costs typically associated with GPUs. Through the CoAIR, we will build specific, actionable AI models that can be deployed at scale, benefiting people in rural and underserved areas across India. This is about taking technology beyond the labs and putting it into the hands of those who need it the most.”

Kompact AI operates without constant internet connectivity, making it ideal for deployment in remote areas with limited or no access to reliable internet, the institute added.