Reliance's Jio-Sized AI Leap

Nearly a decade ago, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) initiated its digital transformation, pivoting from its legacy oil and gas business to the telecom sector. The launch of Jio fundamentally altered the company’s path and rewrote India’s digital narrative.

Fast forward to 2025, Reliance is now raising its tech ambitions, stepping into the artificial intelligence (AI) age while preparing to take Jio public.

At the conglomerate’s 48th annual general meeting (AGM), RIL chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani confirmed plans to list Jio by mid-2026. This would mark the first public listing of a major Reliance business since Reliance Petroleum in 2006.

The possibility of a Jio IPO has been discussed for some time. Ambani had first hinted at it in 2019, saying it was on the cards. With the speculation of Jio going public finally turning into a concrete plan, Reliance is turning its attention to the next major technological wave – AI.

While last year’s AGM made a brief mention of the emerging technology, 2025 featured the debut of a more substantial initiative — a new, wholly owned subsidiary named Reliance Intelligence.

Now, before we dive into RIL’s big AI play, let’s take a quick look at the top stories from our newsroom this week:

OpenAI’s Localisation Problem: For OpenAI, India is the ultimate testing ground – a data feast of a billion-plus users and one of the biggest markets globally. But the government, playing gatekeeper, is demanding they go open-source and keep data close to home. Will the big tech bend the knee?

The Great Indian Gaming Divide: India’s new online gaming law spells ‘game over’ for real-money gaming platforms, but it’s a win for esports and game studios. It could act as the cheat code that finally brings in big investments and legitimacy, giving Indian studios the chance to build original titles and cultural exports.

Dream11 Bets On FanCode: India’s $12 Bn RMG sector was razed to the rubble last week. While most players are scrambling, Dream11 has a secret weapon. Its streaming ‘sidekick’, FanCode, might just be the unlikely hero that saves the day.

Reliance Bets On Intelligence

Reliance Intelligence is built on four pillars — data, computing power, applications, and talent — each serving as a fundamental building block of an AI ecosystem that the company is trying to shape for scale and impact.

Here is a quick look at Reliance’s four-pronged approach:

Firstly, Reliance intends to build India’s next-generation AI infrastructure. This involves developing gigawatt-scale, AI-compatible data centres powered by renewable energy to support nationwide AI training and inference.

Construction is already underway for building these large-scale facilities in Gujarat’s Jamnagar to meet the country’s escalating computing demand. By developing its own infrastructure, Reliance aims to enable the local training and deployment of indigenous foundational models.

Secondly, the conglomerate is envisioning Reliance Intelligence as a hub for global collaboration. The goal is to merge the capabilities of the world’s foremost tech firms and open-source movements with Reliance’s proven execution strength and market knowledge.

Thirdly, the subsidiary will also concentrate on delivering AI services tailored for India. It will not only cater to large corporations, but also individual consumers and small businesses, especially vital sectors like education, healthcare, and agriculture.

With an eye on designing services that are affordable, dependable and user-friendly, Reliance Intelligence will look to replicate its Jio strategy, making AI accessible to all just as the telecom giant made internet access ubiquitous. Simply put, the objective is to develop AI tools that serve the practical needs of everyday Indians and not just niche, high-end applications.

Finally, and the fourth key piece of the puzzle, Reliance Intelligence has set its eyes on becoming a premier destination for AI talent. The plan is to assemble top-tier researchers, engineers and product developers, offering them the resources and settings required to turn innovative concepts into reality.

Despite the ambitious scope of these plans, it is still unclear how much forms part of Reliance’s immediate strategy and how much is reserved for its long-term vision.

The Data Centre Push: Necessary, But Not Sufficient

For now, it seems that Reliance’s immediate priority is to build data centres, a strategy that industry observers believe is in the right direction. After all, it fits Reliance’s DNA – real estate, infrastructure, and capital-intensive bets where sheer scale creates a competitive advantage.

RIL is already building green data centres in phases to keep pace with India’s rapidly increasing compute requirements. The need is clear. Training modern large language models (LLMs) can consume as much electricity as powering a small town for weeks. So, what does the oil-to-telecom giant gain from splurging heavily on this AI endeavour?

India currently relies on global cloud computing giants AWS, Google and Microsoft for its computing needs, and Reliance wants to change this equation.

“It’s almost a no-brainer for them (RIL). You can’t build AI systems without compute. That means servers, GPUs, energy, and platforms. Reliance has money, land, and execution muscle, so this is a natural step,” said Ankush Sabharwal, founder and CEO of CoRover.ai.

RIL’s data centre push also has broader implications for the Indian startup ecosystem, as it could lower the cost of accessing high-quality compute infrastructure.

This complements Reliance’s historical playbook, and industry analysts expect aggressive pricing to win market share. “If competition increases, costs will come down. That’s positive for the ecosystem,” another industry executive noted.

Still, data centres are only one layer of the AI stack. While infrastructure alone does not guarantee breakthroughs, it is, without a doubt, a key enabler.

“However, AI is not just about data centres. It’s about what solutions you build on top, and that’s where Reliance still has to prove itself,” the executive added.

The Trust Quotient

Interestingly, Reliance seems to be banking on something else beyond pure technology. At the AGM, Ambani stressed that Reliance Intelligence will provide ‘trusted’ AI services. This could help the homegrown giant have an edge over its foreign counterparts.

“In India, consumers tend to trust large homegrown companies more than foreign players. So far, we haven’t seen Indian majors deliberately misuse consumer data. Yes, there are leaks and hacks, but not the kind of intentional breaches we’ve seen globally,” Sabharwal said.

Even so, trust in AI is notoriously fragile. Unlike telecom or retail, AI servers will process sensitive personal and business data. Any security breaches, instances of bias, or misuse of data could severely damage consumer confidence.

Establishing a strong reputation for AI safety and fairness could prove to be more arduous than expanding network infrastructure.

Startups In The Line Of Fire?

The AGM also saw Ambani framing Reliance Intelligence as an ‘AI-for-all’ platform, offering accessible and reliable services to a wide range of users, with a focus on education, healthcare, and agriculture.

This messaging is reminiscent of Jio’s 2016 ‘internet for all’ campaign, which, while democratising data access, also led to a harsh consolidation in the telecom sector.

Now, the question is whether the AI sector is destined to witness a similar fate.

“Big companies in India have the money to offer free services, which can kill competition. The government needs to ensure a level playing field. Otherwise, startups will struggle to survive once AI adoption goes mainstream,” an AI startup founder told Inc42.

While startups may be at the forefront of innovation now, Reliance’s massive scale and financial resources mean it could undercut rivals by bundling AI services into its extensive ecosystem that spans telecom, retail, media and finance, potentially marginalising smaller firms over time.

Creating A Bigger Jio Walled Garden

Besides announcing its in-house AI ambitions, Reliance also spotlighted its ongoing deeper collaboration with Google on the emerging technology. The partnership will merge its execution capabilities with Google’s cloud and AI stack to help startups, developers and enterprises innovate faster and more securely across India.

It is also establishing an India-focussed joint venture with Meta to develop sovereign, enterprise-grade AI by combining open-source models with Reliance’s sectoral expertise.

Not stopping there, Ambani flagged robotics as another critical focus area, citing the transformative potential of AI-powered humanoids.

Reliance Intelligence is Ambani’s most significant strategic initiative since Jio. Its four-pronged approach of focussing on infrastructure, partnerships, services, and talent provides a solid framework for developing a wide-encompassing AI ecosystem.

However, ambition must be matched by execution, and currently, much of the announcement feels like a strategic signal to investors and markets, rather than an operational roadmap. Still, with Reliance now in the mix, India’s AI race has a new heavyweight contender.

Sunday Roundup: Startup Funding, Deals & More

Weekly Funding Fiesta: The last week of August ended with a modest funding feast. Eighteen Indian startups plated up $98.2 Mn last week, bouncing 58% over the previous week’s dry spell. The uptick in weekly startup funding was largely led by the fintech sector, with three startups raising a total of $54.4 Mn.

Fintechs’ RMG Conundrum: With India’s blanket ban on real money gaming, fintechs like PhonePe, Razorpay and PayU are seeking clarity from the RBI and MeitY on handling user refunds, chargebacks, and current accounts, warning of disruptions without clear guidelines.

Groww Sets Sails For D-Street: All decks have been cleared for Groww’s D-Street debut. The investment tech unicorn has received SEBI’s nod after making a confidential filing. It is expected to raise $800 Mn to $1 Bn from its IPO at a hefty valuation in the range of $7 Bn-$8 Bn.

Elevation Capital’s $400 Mn IPO Fund: The VC firm has launched a $400 Mn late-stage fund, Elevation Holdings, to back 10–15 startups preparing for IPOs in the next three years, with ticket sizes of $20–50 Mn.

Tata Digital Has A New CEO: Sajith Sivanandan, ex-president of Jio Mobile Digital Services and former Disney+ Hotstar CEO, will take over as Tata Digital’s CEO from September 1. The move has come on the back of a leadership overhaul at Tata Digital.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

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