Avataar cuts video generation cost by 20x for India's market
avataar released the video model varya, generating clips at $0.005 per second—20x cheaper than rivals like runway. this pricing targets india's price-sensitive, video-first consumer market.
backed by peak xv and the india ai mission, avataar.ai released varya, a video generation model distilled from alibaba's wan 2.2. the model runs in 4 steps compared to 50, producing video 10 times faster on a single h200 gpu and at a cost of $0.005 per second. it is trained on curated data to recognize indian cultural nuances in food, clothing, and festivals, and will be released with open weights on the government's ai kosh portal. this move highlights india's pragmatic approach of prioritizing cost-effective applications over expensive foundation model training to drive mass adoption.