Yotta Data Services has launched a ₹10,000 Free Credits Program for Shakti Studio, allowing developers, startups, enterprises, researchers and Global Capability Centers (GCCs) to build, fine-tune and deploy artificial intelligence models without making an upfront commitment to dedicated GPU infrastructure.
The initiative is aimed at lowering the cost of experimenting with AI in India at a time when access to high-performance GPUs remains one of the biggest challenges for developers and early-stage companies.
According to the program announcement, the ₹10,000 promotional credit can be used across Shakti Studio’s serverless GPU infrastructure, AI endpoints and model fine-tuning services.
What Is Yotta Shakti Studio?
Shakti Studio is Yotta’s browser-based AI development and inference platform designed to let users build, fine-tune, test and deploy AI models without having to manage the underlying GPU infrastructure.
The platform provides access to NVIDIA H100 and L40S GPUs through serverless infrastructure, alongside AI APIs, fine-tuning tools and support for custom model deployment.
Yotta’s official Shakti Studio page describes the service as an infrastructure-free environment for AI development, allowing teams to focus on models and applications instead of provisioning and maintaining GPU servers.
Shakti Studio also supports OpenAI-compatible APIs, making it easier for developers to integrate supported models into applications using familiar API workflows.
What Can the ₹10,000 Credits Be Used For?
Yotta says the free credits can be used across several parts of the Shakti Studio platform.
Service | What It Can Be Used For |
|---|
Serverless GPUs | Running AI workloads on NVIDIA H100 and L40S GPUs |
AI Endpoints | Adding supported AI models to apps through APIs |
Model Fine-Tuning | Fine-tuning models on specialised or proprietary datasets |
LoRA Fine-Tuning | Creating lightweight model adaptations with lower compute requirements |
Custom Models | Deploying externally trained or custom model checkpoints |
AI Prototyping | Testing chatbots, image tools, speech models and other AI applications |
The program announcement says Shakti Studio provides access to more than 25 open-source models covering areas such as large language models, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, image generation and optical character recognition.
That makes the offer useful not only for developers experimenting with LLMs, but also for teams working on voice applications, computer vision, document processing and generative AI.
NVIDIA H100 and L40S GPUs Are Available
One of the main attractions of the program is access to high-performance NVIDIA GPUs without purchasing the hardware directly.
Yotta currently lists a single 80GB NVIDIA H100 Shakti Studio serverless instance at ₹7.13 per minute, while a single 48GB NVIDIA L40S instance is listed at ₹3.17 per minute on its official pricing page.
Based purely on those listed compute rates, ₹10,000 would theoretically cover roughly:
These figures are only simple estimates based on the currently published GPU rates. Actual credit consumption may vary depending on the services used, model configuration, fine-tuning workload, and any other applicable charges.
Users should therefore check the latest Shakti Cloud pricing before starting a large job.
Why the Free Credits Matter for Indian AI Developers
Powerful GPUs remain expensive, especially for independent developers and startups that only need infrastructure for short experiments.
A team may want to test whether an AI idea works before paying for reserved GPU capacity or purchasing dedicated hardware. Shakti Studio’s serverless model is designed to address that problem by allowing compute resources to be consumed on demand.
The ₹10,000 credit therefore gives eligible users room to experiment with real AI workloads before deciding whether to continue on a paid basis.
For a startup, this could mean testing a chatbot or AI agent. Researchers could use the credit for model experiments, while businesses could benchmark an AI workload before committing resources to a larger deployment.
India-Hosted AI Infrastructure
Another important part of Shakti Studio is its focus on sovereign AI infrastructure.
Yotta says the platform is hosted in India and designed to provide in-country processing and data residency. The company positions Shakti Cloud as an Indian sovereign AI cloud for enterprises, researchers and startups.
This can be particularly relevant for organisations that need greater control over where their data and AI workloads are processed.
Shakti Studio is also billed in Indian rupees, avoiding the need for customers to calculate GPU spending in US dollars. The free-credit announcement says the promotional balance uses the same standard pay-as-you-go pricing model as regular Shakti Studio usage.
Who Is the Yotta ₹10,000 AI Credit Offer For?
Yotta says the program is aimed at a broad range of AI builders, including:
The company has also been promoting the ₹10,000 offer through its official Shakti Cloud social channels, encouraging users to build, test and deploy AI applications using its NVIDIA-powered infrastructure.
Exact eligibility, account-verification requirements and promotional conditions may change, so applicants should review the latest terms presented during registration.
What Can Developers Build With Shakti Studio?
There are several practical ways developers could use the free credits.
AI Chatbots and Assistants
Developers can experiment with open-source language models and connect them to applications through AI endpoints.
Model Fine-Tuning
Teams with domain-specific datasets can test full fine-tuning or LoRA-based customisation before deciding whether a larger training job is worth the cost.
Speech Applications
Shakti Studio includes models for speech-to-text and text-to-speech workloads, which could be used for transcription, voice assistants and regional-language applications.
Computer Vision and OCR
Developers can also experiment with vision models and optical character recognition for document processing, image analysis and automation projects.
Generative AI Applications
Serverless GPU access can be used for workloads such as image generation and other compute-intensive generative AI applications.
How to Make the Most of the ₹10,000 Credits
Developers should avoid using the entire promotional balance on a large experiment without first measuring how quickly it consumes compute.
A better approach is to start with a small workload, record its runtime, and then estimate how much the complete job will cost.
For example, if an application does not require the memory or performance of an H100, an L40S configuration may allow the promotional credit to last considerably longer.
Likewise, inference workloads can have very different costs than model fine-tuning, so developers should choose resources based on actual requirements rather than automatically selecting the most powerful GPU available.
Check the Terms Before Starting a Workload
The ₹10,000 is promotional platform credit rather than cash, and users should check the latest terms before provisioning resources.
In particular, applicants should verify:
Who qualifies for the promotion
How the credits are activated
When the promotional balance expires
Which Shakti Studio services are eligible
Whether KYC or organisation verification is required
What happens when the free balance is exhausted
Current GPU and AI endpoint pricing
Because cloud pricing and promotional conditions can change, the latest information shown by Yotta at signup should be treated as the final reference.
Data Security Still Matters
Free infrastructure should be treated with the same security precautions as paid cloud services.
Developers working with business or customer information should confirm where their datasets, model files, logs and outputs are stored before uploading sensitive information.
API credentials should be stored securely rather than hard-coded into public repositories or shared notebooks, while access to projects should be restricted to authorised team members.
Teams planning commercial deployment should also review the licence attached to any open-source model they use or fine-tune.
SpecFront’s Take
Yotta’s ₹10,000 Shakti Studio credit program is a useful opportunity for Indian developers and startups that want to experiment with high-performance AI infrastructure without immediately paying for dedicated GPUs.
Access to NVIDIA H100 and L40S GPUs, serverless infrastructure, AI endpoints and fine-tuning tools gives developers several ways to put the promotional balance to practical use. Yotta’s India-hosted infrastructure and INR pricing could also make the platform particularly attractive to businesses looking for locally hosted AI services.
However, ₹10,000 of credit should be viewed as a limited experimentation budget rather than unlimited free AI infrastructure. Developers will get the most value by testing a clearly defined proof of concept, measuring performance and cost, and deciding whether the platform makes sense for their production workload.
Anyone interested in the offer should check Yotta’s latest promotion details and pricing before starting GPU-intensive workloads.
Sources: Yotta Shakti Studio | Shakti Cloud Pricing | ₹10,000 Free Credits Program announcement | The Economic Times