India launches three new AI models, including two that work without the internet

India has taken a massive step toward self-reliance in the technology sector. The IT ministry, with backing from the IndiaAI Mission, has just introduced three brand-new artificial intelligence models to the public. These tools were developed within the country to focus on Indian languages and local business needs, reducing the nation’s reliance on technology from abroad.
The three models, named EKA-1, Dhir 2B, and Dhir 5B, were officially showcased during an event in New Delhi. Government officials, including IT Ministry Secretary S. Krishnan, noted that these tools are built to lift productivity across government offices, research facilities, schools, and private industries.
The most exciting part of this launch is that two of these models are compact enough to work directly on your devices without any internet connection.
EKA-1 is the largest of the newly launched tools, created by a Bengaluru-based startup named Soket Labs. It is a highly powerful, open, and sparse hybrid language model designed to handle complex tasks like advanced mathematics, software programming, logical reasoning and acts as an AI agent that can complete a chain of tasks on its own.
The sheer size of EKA-1 is impressive. It is powered by 26.3 billion parameters and was trained on a massive 7.5 trillion tokens of text data. Its biggest selling point, however, is its language flexibility.
EKA-1 can easily understand English as well as all 22 scheduled Indian languages. Because of its heavy-duty reasoning skills, Soket Labs specifically designed this AI with major sectors like banking, financial services, and cybersecurity in mind.
While EKA-1 is a massive system, the Dhir 2B and Dhir 5B models are built for a totally different use. Created by ZenteiQ AiTech Innovations, these two open-source models are much smaller and are meant for local, everyday use. They can understand English along with 10 different Indian languages.
Instead of focusing on heavy coding or maths, the Dhir models are built to easily search through documents, pull out important information, and automate boring, routine jobs. While the exact parameter counts were not explicitly stated at launch, the numbers in their names likely point to their size in billions, keeping them compact enough for everyday gadgets.
The biggest game-changer for the Dhir 2B and Dhir 5B models is that they do not need an active Wi-Fi connection or a massive cloud server to work. You can download them directly onto a mobile phone or laptop and run them entirely offline.