S Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
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Backed by IndiaAI Mission, Avataar.ai, an artificial intelligence (AI)-native transformation company has launched Varya, a distilled video model on Friday, saying it can make frontier video AI affordable, accessible and relevant for India’s next generation of users.Speaking at the launch, S Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, said that India will not lag behind in its efforts to develop foundational AI models and those developed under the IndiaAI Mission are a response to people who have questioned the country’s potential in coming up with advanced AI platforms.“For all those people who say that model making or these kind of efforts cannot succeed in India, this (Varya) is an answer that shows that it can actually be done, and it’s an answer that shows that India won’t be second to anybody in an effort of this nature,” he said.Krishnan added that the government has supported a range of foundational models across different applications, not just language models.In machine learning, distilled video generation is a model compression technique where a compact “student” model replicates the outputs of a larger, slower “teacher” model, thereby transferring capabilities while eliminating redundant computation.While standard video models must iterate through over 50 noisy steps before producing a clean output, distillation teaches the student model to skip most of these steps, delivering the same quality in just a few iterations.Avataar stated that Varya applies this breakthrough to video for the first time in India, making frontier-quality video generation affordable, fast, and accessible at population scale.According to Sravanth Aluru, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Avataar, Varya has been designed for India’s many contexts, not a generalised idea of India. The model has been built to understand and generate culturally rich visual outputs across India’s regions, festivals, communities, food, clothing, public spaces and everyday life, he said adding that users will be able to create a 211-second video for every ₹100 they spend on the platform.He claimed that Varya will cut video generation time from 50 steps to four which makes it 10 times more efficient over leading models. The firm has developed a video AI platform by using 14 billion parameters, he added.“From a teacher creating a visual lesson in a village classroom, to a medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME) creating product ads, to a citizen accessing public information through video, Varya aims to turn a simple idea into a moving story,” he said.Avataar will also publish a technical report outlining Varya’s model architecture, distillation methodology and benchmarks.Published on June 12, 2026
