The EKA-1 AI model, built by Soket Labs, was released on 3 November 2026 under the IndiaAI Mission, alongside ZenteiQ’s open-source Dhir 2B and Dhir 5B models.
EKA-1 AI model: what Soket Labs launched
- EKA-1 has 26.3 billion parameters and was trained on nearly 7.5 trillion tokens, the IT ministry said.
- Soket calls it an open, sparse hybrid language model covering all 22 scheduled Indian languages plus English.
- It targets mathematics, code, reasoning and agentic use. Soket CEO Abhishek Upperwal says it is tailored to India’s banking, financial services and cybersecurity needs.
Dhir 2B and Dhir 5B: compact open-source models
- ZenteiQ’s models support English and 10 Indian languages and can run as on-premise assistants.
- Listed uses include document-grounded automation and knowledge retrieval for government, education, industry and defence.
- ZenteiQ CEO Sashikumar says the lightweight design runs on GPUs and TPUs and on phones without a cloud connection, keeping data on the device.
What has not been disclosed
- The launch announcement gave no benchmark results, deployment details or pricing.
- Licence terms and download links were not stated. IT Secretary S Krishnan said platforms such as AIKosh can make the models available to researchers, students and innovators.
- Both firms were selected under the IndiaAI Innovation Centre (Foundation Models) pillar and used subsidised national AI compute.
What this means for you
Developers and startups building for Indian languages now have home-grown options, but nothing independent shows how they perform yet. Check the licence, the benchmarks and the hardware needed before building on any of them.
EKA-1 AI model FAQ
What is the EKA-1 AI model?
EKA-1 is a 26.3-billion-parameter language model from Soket Labs, released under the IndiaAI Mission. It is aimed at maths, code, reasoning and agentic tasks.
Which languages does the EKA-1 AI model support?
It supports all 22 scheduled Indian languages and English. ZenteiQ’s Dhir models cover English and 10 Indian languages.
Are Dhir 2B and Dhir 5B open source?
ZenteiQ describes both as open-source models. Pricing, licence terms and download details were not stated at launch.
Sources
- Inc42 – Soket Labs & ZenteiQ Launch Indigenous AI Models – 4 Nov 2026
- Rediff Money (PTI) – IndiaAI Mission Unveils Indigenous AI Models EKA-1, Dhir 2B, 5B – 3 Nov 2026
- Economic Times – Soket Labs, ZenteiQ launch indigenous foundation models under IndiaAI Mission – 3 Nov 2026
Related: Goa Launches AI Policy 2026, Targets 50,000 Goans Trained in AI by 2030
Last updated: 5 November 2026
