Reliance Industries Launches AI Subsidiary, Partners with Tech Giants

AI reliable for Reliance? - The Economic Times

Mukesh Ambani, having built a fortune in petrochemicals, is now pivoting Reliance Industries towards AI, investing heavily in data centers and partnerships with Google and Meta. He aims to refine data into valuable AI solutions, mirroring his father's success in refining oil.For decades, Mukesh Ambani has earned billions refining crude oil to make high-value petrochemicals. Now, the wealthiest Asian is looking to earn an even bigger fortune by refining data into premium tech solutions. Even in 2016, when he first quipped, 'Data is the new oil,' he was repeating what, back then, was emerging wisdom: data will be just as valuable and scarce a resource in the 21st c. as hydrocarbons were in the previous 100 years. He invested $50 bn to make Jio Platforms the world's largest data company. It's time for him to ask if he can bring his father Dhirubhai's refining chops into play and create higher-value AI products that will be demanded by other enterprises. Simply put, the goal of the freshly minted, wholly owned Reliance Intelligence, Mukesh Ambani announced at RIL's AGM last month, would be to discover the data-world equivalent of polymers, plastics and petrol. Conventionally, AI buildouts have been restricted to managing scarce resources like land, capital, power and GPU supplies. Reliance has all four. Jamnagar will host his new AI network of GW-scale data centres that will be turbo-charged by Nvidia's Blackwell chips. Clean electricity will come from their New Energy Complex-4x the size of Tesla's Gigafactory. As for capital, nobody in India can plough mega bucks into greenfield projects like Reliance. But Ambani would need a lot once more. The lion's share of the $320 bn capital expenditure of Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft in 2025 is for servers and data centres. But companies are realising other ingredients are becoming scarce too. The most important of them all is dynamic, proprietary, expert-led datasets to train LLMs. Peak (free) data is a distinct possibility, much like peak oil, warns OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. It's all about achieving 'superintelligence', a hypothetical scenario where AI systems surpass human intelligence. A new set of labs is mushrooming, thick and fast. Ambani has cherrypicked trusted partners to take the fight to his rivals. Google will be providing cloud infra. A separate $100 mn JV with Meta will strive to develop indigenous enterprise solutions for Indian businesses. He needs to have one more trusted ally in his corner. Intersection of the energy and data industry is not unique to Ambani. The story of Saudi Arabia's transformation is also predicated on its bet on AI. Backed by its sovereign wealth fund, PIF, and delivered by a new state-owned AI company, Humain, the Kingdom is also ploughing $100 bn into building similar full-stack AI capabilities. It's the best time for the two sides to harness their strengths, using common links and shared objectives. Both are trying to match the US and China, the two biggest AI hubs. Seeding homegrown AI capabilities instead of ceding the ground to global tech exporters is in equal parts national pride and strategic foresight. But unlike Big Tech, which has had years, if not decades, to perfect business models and technical expertise, the two upstarts are building ground up. For both Reliance and PIF, unleashing their might on hardware may seem the easiest part, but that can't be the sole differentiator when the likes of Meta are laying undersea cables longer than the Earth's circumference. Tougher still is selling homegrown enterprise products to customers who might have access to competing global apps and software programmes. The entire AI services value chain needs serious IT muscle. Both may seek deep-tech valuations, but neither has that DNA, and are starting from scratch to be one. That's where the key actors come in. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi PIF, is also a Reliance board member. Humain's CEO, Tareq Amin, earned his stripes in technology development and automation at Reliance Jio. This chemistry needs to crystallise. A personal friend of Ambani, Rumayyan, also the chair of Saudi Aramco, was about to invest in Reliance's refinery in 2019. It didn't work out then. Can a second attempt turn out to be lucky? Privacy and ethical usage still need to be tackled as guardrails and regulations on data protection gain teeth, even as existing data sets can be anonymised and synthetic data manufactured out of real-world interactions. Going ahead, RIL and Humain may face deeper concerns over transparency and oversight. But for now, what is important is the direction and ambition. The 74 times that 'AI' featured in Ambani's latest AGM speech is a sign of direction. The ambition will be clearer once investments start flowing in. Reliance has over a billion-strong customer base across the sprawling telecoms-retail-media-financial services empire. Many would be common. It gives a tremendous edge to mine and refine this dynamic data on consumer behaviour. That's the magic code for breaking into the real elite club of $1trn-plus market valuation.

Reliance Industries shares in focus after new AI unit launch

Reliance Industries has launched Reliance Intelligence, a wholly-owned subsidiary, to spearhead its AI ambitions in India. This move, announced after market hours with RIL shares closing positively, follows Mukesh Ambani's vision to transform RIL into a deep-tech enterprise. Shares of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) are likely to be in focus on Thursday after the oil-to-telecom conglomerate announced the incorporation of Reliance Intelligence, a wholly owned subsidiary aimed at driving its artificial intelligence ambitions in India. Reliance Industries informed the exchanges on Wednesday, September 10, that it had set up Reliance Intelligence as a wholly owned unit. The company received its certificate of incorporation from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs by email on September 9. The announcement came after market hours, with RIL shares closing in the green at Rs 1,377.50 apiece. The launch follows the company's August annual general meeting, where Chairman Mukesh Ambani unveiled Reliance Intelligence as part of his plan to transform RIL into a "deep-tech enterprise" alongside its telecom, retail, and energy businesses. Reliance Intelligence will pursue four core missions: building gigawatt-scale AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar, forging alliances with leading global technology firms and open-source communities, rolling out AI services across education, healthcare, agriculture, and small businesses, and attracting world-class AI talent to India. To execute its vision, Reliance is partnering with global tech leaders. Ambani announced a "deeper, holistic partnership" with Google, led by Sundar Pichai. The company has also forged a joint venture with Meta to deliver sovereign, enterprise-ready AI platforms for Indian businesses and government entities. The partnership will combine Meta's open-source Llama models with Reliance's scale across energy, telecom, retail, and manufacturing. RIL shares are down nearly 6% in 2025 so far. Over the past year, however, the stock has gained a little over 12%. Also read | Explained: What is China's anti-involution shift and how it impacts Indian stocks (Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Reliance Launches AI Arm, Partners With Google and Meta

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has incorporated a new wholly-owned subsidiary, Reliance Intelligence Limited, as part of its plans to expand into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep technology. The company informed the stock exchanges that it received the certificate of incorporation from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on September 9, 2025. The announcement was made through a filing to the BSE and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) on September 10, after trading hours. Shares of RIL closed the day at Rs 1,377.50 on the BSE. The company had first revealed plans for this new unit during its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on August 29, 2025. At the time, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani told shareholders, "This new company is conceived with four clear missions to house India's next-generation AI infrastructure. Reliance Intelligence will build gigawatt-scale, AI-ready data centres, powered by green energy and engineered for training and inference at a national scale." He added, "Work has already begun on the gigawatt-scale, AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar. These facilities will be delivered in phases aligned to India's growing needs, powered by Reliance's new-energy ecosystem, and custom-made for AI training and inference." Ambani also said the subsidiary will focus on four core areas, building large-scale data centres, forming partnerships with leading tech companies and open-source communities, rolling out AI services for sectors such as education, healthcare, agriculture and small businesses, and attracting AI talent to India. RIL said the new company will "house global partnerships" and bring together "the world's best tech companies and open-source communities" with Reliance's execution strength. It will also create "a home for world-class researchers, engineers, designers, and product builders" to develop AI solutions. As part of its AI plans, RIL announced deeper partnerships with Google and Meta. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent Alphabet Inc., said, "Google and Reliance are partnering to help all of Reliance's businesses transform, using AI - from Energy and Retail to Telecom and Financial Services. To support this AI adoption, together we are establishing a Jamnagar Cloud region, built for and dedicated to Reliance." CEO of Meta, said the two companies will set up a joint venture to deliver "sovereign, enterprise-ready AI platforms tailored for Indian businesses and government entities" by combining open-source models with Reliance's reach. "Together we want to ensure that everyone in India has access to AI -- and eventually superintelligence," he said. Ambani told shareholders, "Jio delivered digital everywhere, for every Indian. Reliance Intelligence will deliver AI everywhere, for every Indian." The company has commenced work on the data centres in Jamnagar and expects to complete them in phases. However, it has not disclosed any schedules or estimates regarding the project's scale. The company has not yet provided any information on how it will structure the new entity within RIL's existing business lines or how it will fund it. As of now, Reliance Intelligence exists only as a newly registered company. Investors and industry observers are watching whether RIL can turn its AI ambitions into operational projects and how quickly it can achieve this in a sector defined by rapid technological change and high upfront costs. RIL has also announced plans to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of its telecom arm, Reliance Jio, by the first half of 2026, as outlined at its recent Annual General Meeting. The twin moves, setting up Reliance Intelligence Limited and preparing for Jio's listing, mark a significant expansion beyond its traditional oil-to-chemicals core. The coming quarters will reveal how RIL sequences these ventures, integrates new technologies, and builds the large-scale infrastructure it has promised, even as investors await more clarity on timelines, structure, and funding plans.