[AI Revolution](157) Targeting 81% of the World... TwoPlatform's Multilingual AI 'SUTRA'

Implementation of a Multilingual Model Supporting Over 50 Languages
Lightweight Structure Reduces Operating Costs
"Redefining Human-Machine Interaction"

"Artificial intelligence (AI) incurs greater costs during inference than during training. We have dramatically reduced costs by processing the same sentence with far fewer tokens."

Pranav Mistry, CEO of the global AI startup TwoPlatform, stated this in an interview with Asia Economy on June 27. He said, "While most AI companies focus on reducing training costs, the real cost burden lies in the operational process, which recurs repeatedly," and explained, "SUTRA is a model specifically targeting that point."

Pranav Mistry, CEO of TwoPlatform, is being interviewed by Asia Economy. Photo by Dongju Yoon

The AI engine 'SUTRA' developed by TwoPlatform is a dual-structure model with two brains. One brain understands concepts, while the other handles tasks such as language, voice, and images. Rather than simply scaling up the entire model, SUTRA is lightweighted to enable real-time conversations even with fewer resources. Mistry remarked, "If ChatGPT consumes 50 tokens to process the same sentence, SUTRA only needs 10."

SUTRA's greatest strength is its multilingual structure. Mistry said, "Whereas most existing AI models are trained on data heavily skewed toward English, SUTRA is designed with various languages in mind, including Korean and Hindi." The chatbot version of SUTRA, 'ChatSUTRA,' surpassed 1 million users within a month of its official launch in February, receiving a positive response.

This design philosophy is also an attempt to address the limitations inherent in existing large language models (LLMs). Most LLMs deliver optimal results when used in English, but in reality, 81% of the global population are non-English speakers. SUTRA was developed with the goal of being an AI model for these non-English-speaking users.

Most global AI language models are based on English, but the actual population using English accounts for only 19% of the total. Two platforms

The decision to target the Korean market first is rooted in the same context. Mistry explained, "Korea is a single-language country, making it highly suitable for data collection and model training. Additionally, the Korean market has a high level of technological receptiveness, and especially Generation Z is very open to new things." His experience as an executive at Samsung Electronics, which helped him gain a deep understanding of the Korean market, was also a significant factor. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, USA, TwoPlatform has branches in Korea and India.

Building on this technological foundation, the company developed the AI social chatbot 'ZAPPY.' He introduced ZAPPY as "not just a helper-type chatbot that answers questions about the weather or music, but a friend-like presence that initiates conversations and sometimes responds in unpredictable ways." Unlike conventional chatbots, which have a one-way structure of responding to questions, ZAPPY is closer to a conversational partner with emotions and memory.

Mistry emphasized that AI should not remain merely a text generation tool. He stated, "True interaction should include voice, facial expressions, and gestures," and added, "In hospitals or banks, digital avatars could greet customers, and for children, AI could become a teacher."

TwoPlatform is currently in the process of raising Series A funding. In early 2022, the company completed a seed round totaling $20 million (approximately 27.7 billion won) from investors including Naver and GeoPlatform. The Series A funding target is between $40 million and $50 million (approximately 55 billion to 68.7 billion won). Mistry said, "This year, our goal is to solidify our leadership in the Asia-Pacific market, and we plan to expand our services to Japan and Southeast Asia as well." He added, "In the long term, we want to go beyond AI technology and revolutionize the entire spectrum of human-machine interaction."