Countering allegations surrounding Digital University Kerala’s invention, Kairali AI Chip, its makers have maintained that their invention is an academic research initiative, and not a commercial product.

They also emphasised the groundbreaking nature of its achievement of designing a functional AI test chip in-house at a State-funded institution with limited infrastructure and funding.

The Save University Campaign Committee (SUCC) had raised serious concerns regarding Kairali Chip by alleging a lack of transparency in its development and misuse of public funds. The organisation also claimed that the chip’s design was not disclosed, lacked patents and had not been commercially validated.

It also questioned why the chip development was not officially communicated to the Central government, particularly at a time when the Centre has invested heavily in India’s semiconductor ecosystem.

‘Validated through reviews’

The developers of Kerala’s first silicon-proven AI chip, while denying the allegations, have stated that the project’s first prototype was developed by teams of Master’s and PhD students, and was validated through multiple reviews under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MeitY) Chip to Startup (C2S) programme.

Highlighting the prohibitive costs of chip development, ranging from $1 million to over $200 million for high-end chips, the makers pointed out that the test chip was realised with limited resources using programmes such as Efabless platform and open-source tools, including those by Skywater and Google, using a 130nm fabrication process.

Under MeitY’s C2S initiative, the research team led by Professor Alex James was able to carry out modular tape-outs (manufacturing ready chip designs), publish research and provide real-world chip design training to dozens of students. The university also received support through the GF-Synopsys Pilot Program, giving students hands-on experience in designing chips ready for commercial fabrication.

Besides, the Kerala government independently recognised the work of Prof. James by awarding him the Kairali Researcher Award, which further supported research into bio-inspired AI (models that try to mimic biological neural networks, especially useful for low-power AI applications).

“This project too was research-driven, and tackled more experimental architecture and spiking neural models. In addition, the university also received selective access to ReRAM design files from TSMC, a global semiconductor leader, which is currently given only to a very limited set of researchers around the world,” the developers added.