A decade in the past, Reliance Jio’s low cost cell knowledge fuelled India’s Web growth by bringing a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of individuals on-line and accelerating the adoption of digital providers throughout the nation.
- The influence was so profound that, in 2018, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings remarked that he hoped “somebody would do a Reliance Jio in each different nation”.
Reliance is now aiming to copy that disruption in AI through affordable compute, infrastructure, and multilingual AI services by way of Reliance Intelligence.
“I firmly imagine that India shouldn’t be a mere client of AI created elsewhere. It should develop into a creator, adopter, and world chief in AI,” mentioned Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani throughout the firm’s forty ninth annual normal assembly (AGM) yesterday.
“At this time, Reliance Intelligence guarantees AI to everybody, all over the place. And we will ship on this promise too,” he mentioned.
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL) chairman Akash Ambani additionally outlined plans to “disrupt AI economics” by making it dramatically extra inexpensive for each Indian by the top of this decade.
- In different phrases, Reliance desires to do for AI what Jio did for knowledge.
The playbook is a well-known one. The launch of Reliance Jio turbocharged India’s Web economic system, serving to drive an enormous growth from roughly 300 million web customers to greater than a billion individuals on-line.
It additionally fueled the expansion of the nation’s startup ecosystem, which went from fewer than 10 unicorns to greater than 130.
“What we’re constructing is an AI for India, AI by India, and AI that may someday serve the world,” Akash Ambani mentioned.
The AI alternative
Mukesh Ambani mentioned AI is rising as a multi-trillion-dollar world alternative and that Reliance Intelligence will lead the sector in India.
Unveiled in August 2025 as a wholly-owned unit to drive AI in India, Reliance Intelligence is billed because the conglomerate’s latest progress engine.
It varieties a part of a broader effort to rework Reliance right into a “deep-tech enterprise” alongside its telecom, retail, and vitality companies. That is anchored by strategic partnerships with tech giants Meta, Google, and Nvidia.
“Reliance Intelligence will make AI integral to the each day lives of each Indian and each Indian enterprise. The use circumstances for AI are rising by the day. Therefore, I envision this enterprise to develop into one in every of Reliance’s most prolific progress platforms,” he mentioned.
From constructing AI infrastructure and knowledge centres to rolling out AI-powered providers for enterprises and customers, Reliance is positioning itself on the coronary heart of India’s AI transformation.
- Its ambitions embody tapping into AI brokers for on a regular basis life, spanning productiveness, communication, buying, leisure and connected-home experiences.
This imaginative and prescient was mirrored in a series of product launches and enhancements unveiled at AGM yesterday, which has more and more served as a showcase for Reliance’s rising expertise prowess in recent times, with AI now taking centre stage.
Reliance’s emphasis on affordability additionally comes as corporations world wide are scrambling to rein in hovering AI prices, forcing many to ration AI utilization and search cheaper instruments.
Additionally Learn: Jio eyes sovereign satellite constellation to connect India’s remotest regions
The necessity for India’s AI champion
The push comes as India searches for its personal AI champion able to difficult world leaders equivalent to OpenAI and Anthropic within the quickly intensifying AI arms race.
Throughout the AGM, Ambani called for AI self-sufficiency to develop into a nationwide mission.
The following part for Reliance Intelligence
Reliance Intelligence is now coming into its subsequent part, with a purpose to construct a worthwhile AI infrastructure, platform, and providers enterprise serving customers, enterprises, and governments at scale, Mukesh Ambani mentioned.
- Its first precedence is to beat AI’s largest problem in India at present: the scarcity and excessive value of compute.
To handle this, Reliance is constructing what it calls a sovereign AI backbone in Jamnagar, beginning with 120 megawatts of capability powered totally by clear vitality via its personal photo voltaic era from the Kutch renewable platform.
- The power might finally scale to greater than two lakh H100-equivalent GPUs, placing it in the identical league as among the world’s most distinguished hyper-scalers and frontier AI labs.
However infrastructure is simply a part of the equation. Reliance can also be laying the muse for a broader AI ecosystem.
Akash Ambani mentioned they’re constructing a ‘world-class’ staff of AI researchers and engineers, investing in India’s AI startup sector and collaborating with main Indian universities and analysis establishments.
Mukesh Ambani additionally made a pitch to India’s engineering expertise, saying the corporate would provide a chance to construct AI options at nationwide scale, serving 1.5 billion individuals and creating homegrown improvements with world relevance.
“We will provide you with the size, the assets, the liberty, and the duty to unravel among the most vital challenges of our age,” he mentioned.
Additionally Learn: From Jio IPO to building AI backbone, Mukesh Ambani charts Reliance’s next phase of growth at 49th AGM
AI throughout the Reliance empire
The conglomerate has been weaving AI into its personal operations, from telecom and retail to vitality.
In retail, Reliance Retail Ventures Restricted (RRVL) government director Isha Ambani Piramal mentioned AI is being integrated across various functions, from understanding what customers need, to planning manufacturing, to how the agency strikes its merchandise throughout the nation.
In the meantime, Akash Ambani mentioned the agency is building AI directly into the heart of the Jio network, permitting customers to deliver AI brokers inside calls to transcribe, summarise, and take actions on their behalf.
Reliance reworked India’s digital panorama with Jio. It’s now making an attempt one thing much more formidable in AI. Whether or not it will probably pull it off stays some of the consequential questions for India’s expertise future.
Disclaimer: Moneycontrol is part of the Network18 group. Network18 is managed by Unbiased Media Belief, of which Reliance Industries is the only beneficiary.
Was this text forwarded to you? You possibly can join the AI Edge here. And don’t neglect to sign up to Tech3, our each day publication that breaks down the most important tech and startup tales each weekday night.