Reliance Industries, India’s largest company by market capitalization, is not sitting out the AI frenzy that has gripped the tech world.
At the company’s 47th annual general meeting Thursday, Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani and other executives made nearly three-dozen mentions of AI in two hours, detailing plans to integrate the technology across Reliance’s vast business empire spanning telecommunications, retail, and energy.
Reliance announced plans for large-scale AI-ready data centers in Jamnagar, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, that will be powered by the company’s green energy resources. Ambani claimed these facilities would enable lower AI inferencing costs in India, potentially making AI applications more affordable. The company was short on details about the feasibility and timeline for achieving the goal.
Reliance’s telecom arm, Jio, is developing a “comprehensive” AI suite called “Jio Brain” to accelerate AI adoption across its operations and other Reliance companies. The firm is partnering with Jio Institute to develop an AI program aimed at cultivating next-generation AI talent in India.
India, which has largely lagged in the global AI race, has seen a flurry of activity in the past year as conglomerates including Reliance and Tata Group (both of which have partnered with Nvidia), along with a crop of startups, push to develop AI apps and infrastructure.
Reliance plans to offer Jio users up to 100 GB of free cloud storage through its Jio AI-Cloud service, set to launch around Diwali in October, Ambani said. During the presentation, Reliance demonstrated JioPhonecall AI, a call recording and transcription service, and introduced Jio TvOS, an operating system for its set-top boxes featuring an AI voice assistant.
The firm, which added Ambani’s three children to its board of directors last year, noticeably omitted any updates on the much-anticipated initial public offerings for Jio, India’s largest telecom operator, and Reliance Retail, the nation’s largest retail chain.
“As 5 years ago, RIL chairman had mentioned that they will IPO telco and retail within 5 years, the market is expecting an update on this,” Bank of America analysts said.
Ambani said the company expects Jio and Retail to double their revenue and EBITDA in the next three to four years. Brokerage firm Jefferies said last month that Reliance could list Jio next year, at a valuation north of $ 110 billion.
Jio raised about $ 20 billion in 2020 from investors including Meta, Google, Mubadala, ADIA, and KKR. The funding valued the Reliance subsidiary at $ 65 billion. Reliance Retail, which also raised $ 7 billion in 2020 from external investors, raised about $ 1.85 billion last year at a valuation of $ 100 billion.
