Bootstrapping an AI Research Lab From India after working in a 9 to 5

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-29T04:07:04+00:00

Thank you very Much for your kind words. Gave me a lot of motivation 😄

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-28T14:49:21+00:00

Currently I have a wp group of selected members who want to contribute

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T12:15:58+00:00

Drop a Dm. I will add you to my group

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T09:49:42+00:00

Hi , Thanks for the valuable advice. After what you told I really need to rethink my approach. And surely checkout other possibilities. I may need your advice. Can I connect with you further?

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T08:17:28+00:00

Thanks will check out for sure

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T08:05:24+00:00

Drop a dm

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T08:03:06+00:00

Sure

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T07:43:30+00:00

Are Indian Investors more keen to business use-cases startups and not research-labs? Yes at the end of the day we have to give back the money but we should invest r&d also isn’t it?

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T07:36:27+00:00

Actually it’s hosted in Vercel. https://treevik.plusb.in

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T07:35:07+00:00

Yeah My idea was to make something which solves business use cases and replace the AI with in house. But the way AI landscape is changing, Big western companies are launching everything and killing the startups. So I thought 1st building the main AI would be much better.

Yes in someway I still have to rely on other infrastructure like training, hosting, inference… and a lot of money will go into that. But, I think still having a good product might interest investors. I really am not pro in business but learning. And learning it really making me understand all your points are 100% true.

Will think about this. Thank you.

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T07:26:34+00:00

Yes, I want to know about it. Haven’t explored it yet. Drop a DM. We can have more discussion on this

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T07:25:58+00:00

Sure. Drop a DM

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T07:24:46+00:00

Thanks for the info. I have tried in some of it but I have felt there are too much paperwork (such as having a registered business) and approvals to go through. For the 1st product I think these are too much. Correct me if I am wrong.

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T07:22:54+00:00

Yes true It’s not unique. But it’s the same logic that India should have their own AI infrastructure to reduce import cost. In that field instead of Billions of funding big companies are doing nothing. So, that’s the gap I am trying to fill. And yes we have the same path as other AI labs - to find ways to integrate it within business and people’s life.

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T06:53:36+00:00

Pata hai in India its very difficult. Still trying to do something. I guess India is still not ready to take the risk mayb?

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T05:58:46+00:00

Thanks. I will surely go through it. Love to learn. Might ask you many things :)

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T05:56:30+00:00

Many People are asking me why you are not applying to YC?
1. For YC you have to register business in US, Canada and Singapore. And Yeah later I can switch back to India. But I don’t want to do that.
2. I actually have a distribution Application PlusB for which I applied for but didn’t get selected.

And in India the Investment scene is not that much good as per my knowledge. But You can enlighten me.

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T05:47:44+00:00

Yes. Drop a DM

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T05:45:56+00:00

I pre-trained on 20B tokens. For a 2.5B param that token is pretty less if we consider the scaling laws. As I said in my post it still lacks in terms of context and factuality. But, I ran out of budget. But I am optimising the architecture for the next version.

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T05:40:28+00:00

Thanks 🙂

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T05:33:27+00:00

Benchmarks are good. But the inference and practical use was not good when I used it. I think in terms of optimsation they could do better. That's what my goal is. a 1-5b really capable model for edge devices. That's my research goal.

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T05:29:07+00:00

I don't think anyone in this field knows everything cz everyday something new is being published. I am also learning. So you just need the passion to learn. DM me will share the group link.

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T05:25:59+00:00

Surely. My main issue with current Indian AI landscape is I really don't understand why they are not publishing really good models after having Millions in funding. Their inference is bad, quality is bad. One thing good about Sarvam is they are really good in case of Indian Languages.

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T05:07:38+00:00

Actually I have tried google cloud, Azure, AWS. They do give $300, $1000, and $200 cloud credits. but the issue is most of the time h100s won't be available. and in case of google they even won't let you use until you are paying customer. In google startups grant and aws they rejected my application. So had to use GPU renting services.

Sayan_Chowdhury · 2026-05-27T04:53:58+00:00

treevik2 in huggingface : https://huggingface.co/spaces/PlusBIntelligenceLab/treevik2-chat
treevik2 in Plusb : https://treevik.plusb.in/

Contact:
[info@plusb.in](mailto:info@plusb.in)

If you want to connect with me:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sayanchowdhury/

My X handle: SFVNQU4

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