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 annual general meeting Thursday, Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani made over 50 mentions of AI, detailing plans to integrate the technology across Reliance’s vast business empire.
Reliance announced plans for large-scale AI-ready data centers in Jamnagar, 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.
Ambani also announced Jio AI-Cloud, providing Jio users with up to 100 GB of free cloud storage starting from the festival Diwali in late October this year. This initiative aims to enable widespread access to AI services through a model Reliance calls “Connected Intelligence.”
In a demo of AI applications, Reliance unveiled JioPhonecall AI, a service that can record, transcribe, summarize, and translate phone calls. The company also unveiled Jio TvOS, a home-grown operating system for its set-top boxes, integrated with AI-powered voice assistant Hello Jio.
Reliance didn’t offer an update on the initial public offerings for Jio, India’s largest telecom operator, and Reliance Retail, the nation’s largest retail chain. Analysts were anticipating that the firm will offer key updates on the future IPOs.
“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.
More to follow.