Seven Days to Bid for India’s Sovereign GPUs

Key points

• C-DAC’s Request for Empanelment No. C-DAC/GPU/01/2026 accepts bids only from 9:00 am IST on 22 October to 3:30 pm IST on 29 October 2026, for up to 10,000 AI compute units in clusters of at least 512 units at a single Indian data centre.
• Bidders need an average annual turnover of at least ₹120 crore, a Tier-III data centre in India and either 512 installed units or a deployment guarantee that the document states as ₹10 crore in some clauses and ₹30 crore in others.
• India’s promised national data-centre policy rests so far on a ministerial remark at a 14 October power-sector conference whose official release does not mention it, while Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are chasing sovereign compute from far smaller bases.

India’s next tranche of state-backed AI compute opens for bids this Thursday, and the window is short. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), the scientific society of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) that implements the IndiaAI Mission, will accept submissions to its Request for Empanelment of AI Service Providers (RFE Ref. C-DAC/GPU/01/2026, dated 7 October 2026) for seven days, from 22 to 29 October. Whoever clears this gate becomes the pool from which ministries, universities, start-ups and industry rent sovereign GPUs for years.

The terms show how a large democracy is writing localisation and capacity verification into public AI procurement, just as its own ministers concede that data centres are becoming a fight over electricity bills. AI & GPP’s earlier analysis, India’s Sovereign AI Bet Meets the Price of Silicon, argued that each new IndiaAI tender round would be priced against a dearer chip market. This RFE puts dates on the next one.

What the RFE demands, and who can clear the bar

The document, on the Central Public Procurement Portal as Tender ID 2026_DIT_929273_1, is specific about scale and quiet about money: the tender value is withheld from public view, and bidders sign a bid-securing declaration instead of paying earnest money. Its core thresholds:

The scoring reveals priorities. Installed capacity carries 30 marks; security certifications, turnover and the data centre 15 each, with renewable energy and liquid or immersion cooling worth five apiece; prior GPU work for government bodies 10. Winners may not act “merely as an aggregator or pass-through entity” or subcontract the service, which shuts out resellers and favours operators that already control racks.

One clause needs a question before Thursday. Section 9 asks bidders still building their 512-unit cluster for a guarantee of ₹10 crore, yet the same section refers to a “guarantee of Rs.30 Cr”, and the amount field on the model bank-guarantee form in Annexure 6 reads thirty crore, though the form’s own text says ten. As of 19 October, the tender page lists no corrigendum. A threefold gap in a security instrument is not something a finance team can settle by guesswork.

Empanelment is a licence to compete, not an order

The RFE is Stage 1 of two. Stage 2 is procurement through the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) among empanelled firms, with scope, service levels, penalties and price format issued only then. Empanelment “shall not confer any guarantee of work allocation”, and C-DAC may award everything to one provider or split it by capacity, geography or risk. The panel runs three years, extendable by three, and services are indicatively hired for five.

The first purchase is smaller than the headline. According to MediaNama, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at the 8 October India launch of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2026: “Our demand estimate is for 10,000 GPUs, and the first tender that we are coming out with is for 5,000.” The Press Information Bureau release on that launch does not carry the figure, and the RFE, which says Stage 2 will run in multiple rounds, does not say how many units the first will cover, so 5,000 is a ministerial signal, not a contractual quantity. MediaNama also notes a separate MeitY tender for an AI team to build services on platforms including DigiLocker, which, as AI & GPP reported, is opening to banks and adding an AI assistant.

India’s power question has a minister’s answer but no document

Eight days before bids open, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Jitin Prasada said on 14 October that India was rolling out a data-centre policy, Reuters reported in a story carried by The Economic Times. Data centres in some countries, he said, were taking power from consumers who then paid more, and “we don’t want to get into that”. He gave no scope or date. Reuters tied the move to resident protests near Amazon’s planned site outside Mumbai and against Google’s $15bn Visakhapatnam project; both companies deny wrongdoing. India has no sector-specific rulebook: projects pass ordinary environmental and building approvals, and some states add incentives. Inc42 reported that the Amazon site in Thane is expected to draw 422MW.

The official record of the event, a Central Electricity Authority (CEA) conference, is silent on the policy. The PIB release on “Making Indian Power Sector AI Enabled” lists Prasada among those present and records instead that the CEA has formed a team of 54 AI enthusiasts and brand ambassadors, that utilities may set up AI teams, and that the regulation session framed AI as a human-supervised decision-support tool for reviewing tariff filings. No MeitY or Ministry of Power text on the policy has appeared.

That gap matters to bidders. A five-year compute service priced now will absorb whatever tariff, siting or grid-cost rules arrive later. The RFE rewards renewable supply and liquid cooling, but does not mention power costs; its only price-adjustment language says Stage 2 may define a mechanism for inflation, exchange rates, statutory levies or other agreed parameters.

Dhaka and Colombo show the other end of the scale

Neighbours are making sovereign-compute promises from thinner foundations. In Dhaka on 8 October, Rehan Asif Asad, adviser to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman on posts, telecommunications, IT and science and technology, pledged a national sovereign AI capability inside a year and said the chips and memory for it were already secured, The Business Standard reported. The Daily Star’s account quotes him saying “We have secured the sourcing of computing chips”, but also reports the government still working to obtain high-end GPUs through government-to-government talks, for a small modular facility with its own power generation. Neither report names a budget, GPU count or site, and a Daily Star commentary notes the draft National AI Policy 2026–2030 is still unapproved.

Sri Lanka has quantified its gap. Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, the President’s Chief Adviser on Digital Economy, told an investment summit on 12 October that national data-centre capacity is about 5MW against a short-term need of 25–50MW, Daily FT reported; the government will target 25MW, citing energy and environmental limits. Of state investment to fill what he called partly a market failure, he said: “The Government really does not need to do it, but it will.” In Daily FT’s companion report, he said the Digital Economy Bill is still awaiting legislation and that outcome-based procurement guidelines will give precedence to Sri Lankan firms.

All three equate sovereignty with domestic hosting. Only India has turned that into enforceable bid terms, and even there the energy rules that will set long-run cost are unwritten.

What decision-makers should do before 29 October

Prospective bidders should seek written clarification from C-DAC on the ₹10 crore versus ₹30 crore guarantee and watch for a corrigendum; the portal’s auto-extension settings list a two-day extension where fewer than three bids are received. Finance teams should assume a national data-centre policy will move power costs within a five-year term. Ministries and universities expecting access should ask MeitY how Stage 2 will allocate the first tranche. In Dhaka and Colombo, compute pledges are running ahead of the power plans and enabling laws they depend on. Watch 29 October for bids, 30 October for technical openings, MeitY’s promised AI-regulation consultation paper (the shift AI & GPP examined in India Drops the Light Touch on AI), and any official text giving Prasada’s policy a shape.

Questions this answers

When can companies bid for India’s 10,000-GPU compute empanelment?
Bids are accepted on the Central Public Procurement Portal from 9:00 am IST on 22 October to 3:30 pm IST on 29 October 2026, with technical bids opened at 4:00 pm IST on 30 October. The pre-bid meeting was scheduled online for 14 October. (C-DAC RFE)

Who is eligible to join India’s AI compute panel?
An Indian-registered entity with average annual turnover of at least ₹120 crore, positive net worth, a Tier-III or better data centre in India, and either 512 operational compute units or a guarantee-backed order to install them within six months. All data, logs, backups and disaster recovery must stay in India, and bidders must score at least 60 of 100 marks. (C-DAC RFE)

Has India published a national data-centre policy?
No. Minister of State Jitin Prasada said on 14 October that a policy is being rolled out to keep consumers from paying more for power, but gave no scope or date, and the official release on the event where he spoke does not mention it. (PIB; The Economic Times/Reuters)

Sources

1. Request for Empanelment (RFE) of AI Service Providers (ASP) for Provisioning of AI Compute Capacity, RFE Ref. C-DAC/GPU/01/2026 — Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, 7 October 2026 (tender page with NIT and RFE documents; PDF)
2. 10,000 GPUs for India AI Mission; MeitY invites proposals — MediaNama, 13 October 2026
3. Union Minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw Launches World Bank Group’s ‘World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence’ in New Delhi — Press Information Bureau, 8 October 2026 (Release ID 2320883)
4. CEA Brainstorming Event: Making Indian Power Sector AI Enabled (International Conference cum Exhibition) — Press Information Bureau, 14 October 2026 (Release ID 2323545)
5. India to roll out data centre policy as concerns grow over power use — The Economic Times (Reuters), 14 October 2026 (paywall)
6. Centre To Roll Out Data Centre Policy Amid Power Cost Concerns — Inc42, 14 October 2026
7. Bangladesh aims to put AI at heart of tech diplomacy, public services — The Business Standard, 8 October 2026
8. Bangladesh to launch sovereign AI within a year — The Daily Star, 9 October 2026
9. Navigating the US-China rivalry: Bangladesh cannot outsource its AI sovereignty — The Daily Star, 11 October 2026 (commentary)
10. Data centre gap a market failure; private sector must take the lead — Daily FT, 13 October 2026
11. Digital economy goals stand despite AI threat to IT services: Dr. Wijayasuriya — Daily FT, 13 October 2026

The Machine State desk · 19 October 2026