{"id":106222,"date":"2026-02-21T09:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T09:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/21\/indias-sarvam-launches-indus-ai-chat-app-as-competition-heats-up\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T09:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T09:45:14","slug":"indias-sarvam-launches-indus-ai-chat-app-as-competition-heats-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/21\/indias-sarvam-launches-indus-ai-chat-app-as-competition-heats-up\/","title":{"rendered":"India&#8217;s Sarvam launches Indus AI chat app as competition heats up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sarvam.ai\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Sarvam<\/a>, an Indian AI startup focused on building models for local languages and users, on Friday launched its Indus chat app for web and mobile users, entering a fast-growing market dominated by global players including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The launch comes as India has become a key battleground for generative AI adoption. Recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/15\/india-has-100m-weekly-active-chatgpt-users-sam-altman-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ChatGPT has more than 100 million weekly active users<\/a> in India, while Anthropic said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anthropic.com\/research\/india-brief-economic-index\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">India accounts for 5.8% of total Claude usage<\/a>, second only to the U.S.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Indus serves as a chat interface for its newly announced Sarvam 105B model, the company\u2019s 105-billion-parameter large language model. The app\u2019s launch comes two days after Bengaluru-based Sarvam <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/18\/indian-ai-lab-sarvams-new-models-are-a-major-bet-on-the-viability-of-open-source-ai\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">unveiled<\/a> its 105B and 30B models at the <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/19\/all-the-important-news-from-the-ongoing-india-ai-summit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">India AI Impact Summit<\/a> in New Delhi earlier this week. At the summit, the startup also outlined enterprise initiatives and hardware plans and announced partnerships with companies <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/18\/indias-sarvam-wants-to-bring-its-ai-models-to-feature-phones-cars-and-smart-glasses\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">including HMD to bring AI to Nokia feature phones<\/a> and Bosch for AI-enabled automotive applications.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Currently available in beta on <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/in\/app\/indus-by-sarvam\/id6758622680\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">iOS<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=ai.sarvam.indus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Android<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/indus.sarvam.ai\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">web<\/a>, the Indus app allows users to type or speak queries and receive responses in text and audio. Users can sign in using their phone number, Google or Microsoft account, or Apple ID, though the service appears to be limited to India for now.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1007\" src=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3095095\" srcset=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=150,79 150w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=300,157 300w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=768,403 768w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=680,357 680w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=1200,629 1200w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=1280,671 1280w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=430,226 430w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=720,378 720w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=900,472 900w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=800,420 800w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=1536,806 1536w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=668,350 668w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=1176,617 1176w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=708,371 708w, https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/saram-chat-app.jpg?resize=50,26 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"wp-block-image__credits\"><strong>Image Credits:<\/strong>Jagmeet Singh \/ TechCrunch<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The app currently comes with some limitations. Users cannot delete their chat history without deleting their account, and there is no option to turn off the app\u2019s reasoning feature, which can sometimes slow response times. Sarvam has also warned that access may be restricted as it gradually expands its compute capacity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re gradually rolling out Indus on a limited compute capacity, so you may hit a waitlist at first. We will expand access over time,\u201d Sarvam co-founder Pratyush Kumar <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/pratykumar\/status\/2024889210592014652\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">wrote<\/a> on X, adding that the company is seeking feedback from users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Founded in 2023, Sarvam has <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/12\/06\/indias-sarvam-ai-raises-41-million-from-lightspeed-khosla-peak-xv\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">raised $41 million<\/a> to date from investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Peak XV Partners, and Khosla Ventures as it builds large language models tailored for India.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">Boston, MA<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">June 9, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sarvam is one of a small but growing group of Indian startups attempting to build domestic alternatives to global artificial intelligence platforms as India seeks greater control over its AI infrastructure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/20\/indias-sarvam-launches-indus-ai-chat-app-as-competition-heats-up\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sarvam, an Indian AI startup focused on building models for local languages and users, on Friday launched its Indus chat app for web and mobile<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}