Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited, announced a ₹10 lakh crore investment in artificial intelligence, positioning it as a transformative step similar to the telecom revolution led by Jio.
Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, held under the government’s IndiaAI Mission framework, Ambani described the commitment as one of the largest corporate AI investments announced in the country. The planned outlay will be spread over the next seven years.
“This is not a speculative outlay. It is patient, disciplined, nation-building capital intended to generate lasting economic value and strategic resilience for decades,” Ambani said.
Calling the global AI Impact Summit a “turning point in India’s technology journey,” he explained that the funds would go toward building sovereign AI infrastructure, reducing the cost of compute, and scaling intelligence deployment across industries.
Ambani outlined three major initiatives centered on Jio Platforms Limited and its role in driving India’s AI transformation.
First, he said that after leading India into the internet era, Jio would now usher the country into the intelligence age. The goal is to deliver AI-powered services to every citizen, sector, and arm of government with the same reliability, scale, and affordability that redefined mobile data access across India.
“India cannot afford to lease intelligence,” Ambani declared, underscoring the importance of building domestic AI capabilities rather than depending on imported infrastructure and services. He added that Jio intends to lower the cost of intelligence just as dramatically as it once slashed mobile data prices during the telecom revolution.
Second, Ambani confirmed that Jio, along with Reliance, will invest ₹7 lakh crore over the next seven years starting this year. The investment will be directed toward AI infrastructure, platforms, research, and sector-specific solutions spanning manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, education, retail, and financial services.
He stressed that the capital deployment is focused on long-term value creation and enhancing strategic resilience, with the broader ambition of positioning India as a global AI powerhouse.
Third, Ambani announced that Jio Intelligence will build India’s sovereign compute backbone through large-scale, AI-ready data centres. Construction is already underway in Jamnagar, where multi-gigawatt data centre capacity is being developed. Over 120 MW of AI-ready capacity is expected to go live in the second half of 2026, with a clear roadmap to scale up to gigawatt-level compute power to support extensive AI training and inference workloads.
Ambani described compute as the main bottleneck in the AI ecosystem today, adding that domestically built, green energy-powered data centres will ensure abundant and affordable AI capacity for the country.
Reflecting on Jio’s broader digital impact, he said, “With over 500 million subscribers, Jio played a central role in connecting India through broadband, 4G and 5G. We will now take on an even greater role in connecting India to intelligence.”
He also linked AI to India’s long-term development vision, arguing that the country’s demographic strength, democratic framework, digital public infrastructure, and vast data generation capacity give it a unique advantage in emerging as a leading AI nation by 2047.
Emphasising inclusivity, Ambani noted that AI must be multilingual and accessible across India’s diverse population. He said intelligence should serve farmers, small businesses, students, and healthcare providers just as much as large enterprises, functioning as a productivity multiplier across both the informal and formal economy.
