- Pratyush Kumar emphasized persistence and grit over degrees in the AI era
- AI reduces the value of static knowledge, focusing on rapid learning ability
- Building advanced AI requires significant capital and high-grade computing power
When asked what kind of people he wants to hire in the AI era, Pratyush Kumar did not mention degrees or pedigree. He talked about "suffering".
Speaking at the NDTV Ind.AI Summit, the CEO and co founder of Sarvam AI said the rules of talent are shifting fast as artificial intelligence accelerates across sectors.
"You need to have the ability to suffer to succeed," Kumar said. "People who go the extra mile are more productive." As technology becomes more powerful, he argued, the human edge lies in persistence and grit.
He said AI is eroding the premium placed on static knowledge. "Because there is AI, what you know matters less than how quickly you can learn. The rate of learning matters much more than what you have learnt. We look at that strongly. People with agency to learn, agency to solve things."
Kumar acknowledged that building advanced AI systems remains capital intensive. Training large language models demands deep research and massive compute power, often powered by high grade GPUs from companies like Nvidia. "We need to burn a lot of their chips to train these models," he said, noting that such infrastructure was once accessible only to a few global players.
Still, he insisted India must build its own AI stack. As the world's third largest economy and an ancient civilization, he said, it is natural that India should develop these technologies at home while solving for capital intensity and research depth.
The company also unveiled AI powered glasses set to launch in May. A viral image showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi trying the device at Sarvam's stall. Kumar said the Prime Minister stepped past a marked security line, examined the products and asked if the system could speak Gujarati. Sarvam demonstrated document scanning, speech recognition and voice synthesis, including access through a feature phone without expensive hardware.
