IIT Madras, Pravartak Foundation & Ziroh Labs Launch Centre for AI Research in Accessibility

IIT Madras and Pravartak Foundation have partnered with Ziroh Labs to launch the Centre of AI Research and the Kompact AI platform, focusing on accessibility and aligned with India’s “AI for All” mission.

IIT Madras, Pravartak Foundation & Ziroh Labs Launch Centre for AI Research

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation have partnered with Ziroh Labs, a California-based deep-tech startup, to establish the Centre of AI Research (COAIR) aimed at addressing India’s compute accessibility challenges. COAIR will focus on developing efficient, real-world AI solutions optimized for CPU and edge device inferencing. Marking a major step towards accessible AI, Ziroh Labs also launched the first version of ‘Kompact AI’ at IIT Madras, a platform that enables the development and deployment of foundational AI models using CPUs, eliminating the need for expensive and scarce GPUs.

About Kompact AI

Kompact AI is aligned with India’s AI Mission, “AI for All,” and has been developed by a team of Indian scientists and engineers. Ziroh Labs has already optimized 17 AI models including DeepSeek, Qwen, and Llama to run efficiently on CPUs. These models have been jointly benchmarked with IIT Madras, assessing both quantitative performance and qualitative accuracy. For the first time, high-performance AI can be built and deployed effectively on CPUs, making it more accessible, scalable, and cost-efficient.

Kompact AI offers a transformative approach to AI by enabling efficient model execution on low-end CPUs without relying on internet connectivity. As part of the upcoming Centre of AI Research (CoAIR), IIT Madras will focus on developing smaller, use-case-specific models using Kompact AI to make high-performance AI more accessible and practical.

Key Features of Kompact AI:

• Enables AI development and deployment on CPUs, eliminating the need for expensive GPUs.
• Optimized models like DeepSeek, Qwen, and Llama deliver high performance at reduced costs.
• Functions offline, making it ideal for use in remote or low-connectivity areas. 

Kompact AI addresses the challenge of inference and fine-tuning for models with under 50B parameters—commonly used across enterprises globally. Unlike existing CPU-based frameworks that often rely on quantised or distilled models (which compromise quality), Kompact AI delivers full-scale models on CPUs with up to 3x better performance, maintaining model accuracy and output quality.

Highlights of Kompact AI:

• Enables GPU-level performance on CPUs without sacrificing model quality.
• Supports deployment of full-scale foundational models (text, speech, vision, multimodal) on CPUs.
• Includes a robust Model Library optimized for CPU compatibility.
• Offers a Common AI-Language Runtime (ICAN) supporting 10+ programming languages for easy integration by developers worldwide.

Elaborating on the need for such developments, Prof. 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.”

Dr. Madhusudhanan B, Principal Consultant - IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation, added, “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.”

Speaking at the launch of Kompact AI, Prof Sadagopan, Former Director – IIIT-Bangalore, said, “By combining affordability/availability of AI development and deployment tools - using CPUs without excessive dependence on GPUs - Kompact AI proves once again that India can do frugal innovation at the cutting edge of technology. Even more interesting is the fact that such a solution using far less electrical power is sustainable. It is also aligned with India’s AI Mission, “AI for All” – from India for the world.”

According to Hrishikesh Dewan and Igneta DSouza Co-founders, Ziroh Labs said, “Kompact AI is designed for such needs and operates efficiently on CPUs, optimized for task-specific applications. This ensures that communities and enterprises with limited infrastructure can leverage the power of AI to create practical, impactful solutions. Our collaboration with IIT-Madras and IIT-M Pravartak Foundation will aim to address multiple challenges. We are grateful for this partnership, as teams from IITM have been pillars of support during the entire Kompact AI development journey.”

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