Zoho making smaller AI models with up to 20 billion parameters: CEO Sridhar Vembu

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) giant Zoho is developing smaller artificial intelligence (AI) models, founder-CEO Sridhar Vembu revealed on Saturday, adding that this is because the company found that smaller AI models, and not the large ones, are better for specific domain problems.

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“We are working on models that are based on 7 billion to 20 billion parameters…we are not doing the 500 parameter models as of now. We also want to have our very own graphics processing units (GPUs) infrastructure as that is cheaper in the long term,” Vembu said at CNBC TV18-Moneycontrol's Global AI Conclave.

Recently, Zoho unveiled a suite of 13 generative AI extensions, along with integrations of its applications; the suite is powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT. Also, the Chennai-based firm is further enhancing its AI capabilities, doing so by blending third-party intelligence into Zia, the company's artificial intelligence-powered assistant.

Additionally, earlier this year, in June, Zoho announced a new project: its own large language model (LLM), similar to OpenAI's GPT and Google's PaLM 2 models, with the project being overseen by Vembu himself, while the research and development (R&D) team is working on it.

What is a large language model?

An LLM is a type of AI model designed specifically to understand natural language. It can process and generate text, which, in turn, can be used for tasks such as language translation, summarisation, and questions and answers.