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Business | Machine of the state

Welcome to the era of AI

nationalism
Sovereigns the world over are racing to control their technological
destinies
image: alberto miranda

Jan 1st 2024 | ABU DHABI AND CHENNAI Share

T he hottest technology of 2023 had a busy last few weeks of
the year. On November 28th Abu Dhabi launched a new state-
backed artificial-intelligence firm, ai71, that will commercialise
its leading “large language model” (llm), Falcon. On December
11th Mistral, a seven-month-old French model-builder, announced
a blockbuster $400m funding round, which insiders say will value
the firm at over $2bn. Four days later Krutrim, a new Indian
startup, unveiled India’s first multilingual llm, barely a week after
Sarvam, a five-month old one, raised $41m to build similar Indian-
language models.

Ever since Openai, an American firm, launched Chatgpt, its

human-like conversationalist, in November 2022, just about every
month has brought a flurry of similar news. Against that backdrop,
the three latest announcements might look unexceptional. Look
closer, though, and they hint at something more profound. The
three companies are, in their own distinct ways, vying to become
ai national champions. “We want ai71 to compete globally with
the likes of Openai”, says Faisal al-Bannai of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced
Technology Research Council, the state agency behind the Emirati
startup. “Bravo to Mistral, that’s French genius,” crowed
Emmanuel Macron the president of France recently Chatgpt and
Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, recently. Chatgpt and
other English-first llms “cannot capture our culture, language and
ethos”, declared Krutrim’s founder, Bhavish Aggarwal. Sarvam
started with Indian languages because, in the words of its co-
founder, Vivek Raghavan, “We’re building an Indian company.”
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