As global AI adoption accelerates, developers face a growing challenge: delivering large language model (LLM) performance that meets real-world latency and cost requirements. Running models with tens of billions of parameters in production, especially for conversational or voice-based AI agents, demands high throughput, low latency, and predictable service-level performance. For startups building sovereign AI models from scratch, these challenges are amplified by the need to balance model scale and accuracy with infrastructure efficiency—while also maintaining data sovereignty and cost control. Sarvam AI , a generative AI startup based in Bengaluru, India, set out to build large, multilingual, multimodal foundation models that serve its country’s diverse population, support nearly two-dozen languages, and keep model development and data governance fully under India’s sovereign control.…