AI Model Integrates With India's Digital ID
Sarvam AI has integrated its Large Language Model with India's Aadhaar national digital identity system, a first for any LLM. The integration enables voice-based agentic workflows for rural users in fraud-sensitive areas like government subsidy distribution. The Indian government has officially cleared the model for this level of access.
Bengaluru-based Sarvam AI, founded in July 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, raised a significant $41 million Series A in December 2023. The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures, marking one of the largest early-stage AI investments in India. Co-founder Vivek Raghavan brings deep public infrastructure experience, having been involved with the Aadhaar system since its early days around 2010. This background provides unique insight into navigating the complexities of integrating with the world's largest biometric identity system, which now covers over 99.9% of India's adult population. The integration will run on a custom Generative AI stack hosted on-premise within the Unique Identification Authority of India's (UIDAI) air-gapped infrastructure. This ensures no user data leaves UIDAI's secure environment, addressing critical data sovereignty and privacy concerns inherent in national identity systems. The initial agreement is for a one-year period, with a potential one-year extension. The voice-based system is designed to tackle specific fraud vectors in government services. It will solicit real-time feedback from users on their enrollment and update experiences, explicitly checking for instances of overcharging by service providers. The AI will also monitor authentication requests for suspicious activity and trigger real-time fraud alerts to users. This initiative addresses a critical need, as government welfare programs are frequent targets for scams. Fraudsters often impersonate officials to deceive beneficiaries, a problem exacerbated by low digital literacy in rural areas. The Indian government is already using AI and machine learning to detect fraud in health insurance schemes, making this a strategic expansion of that approach. Sarvam AI's focus extends to broad language inclusivity, a key factor for reaching rural populations. Before this integration, the company launched OpenHathi, the first major Hindi Large Language Model built on the Llama2-7B architecture, with plans to support up to ten Indian languages. The Aadhaar integration itself will launch with support for 10 languages, including Hindi, Tamil, and Marathi.
