India’s largest service provider expands on its AI focus and gives an update on 5G growth.
The annual general meeting (AGM) of Reliance Industries (RIL), the parent company of India’s largest service provider Reliance Jio, usually witnesses several key announcements, and this year was no different.
Besides announcing the launch of the Jio AI-Cloud offer, planned for later this year, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani spoke at length about the company’s vision of providing affordable AI services and applications to everyone.
Jio’s AI focus
In line with its focus on affordable and accessible AI, which Ambani referred to as “AI Everywhere for Everyone,” he announced the launch of the Jio AI-Cloud offer. As part of this, Jio users will get 100GB of free cloud storage.
“We are laying the groundwork for a truly national AI infrastructure. We plan to establish gigawatt-scale, AI-ready data centers in Jamnagar, powered entirely by Reliance’s green energy, reflecting our commitment to sustainability and a greener future,” said Ambani.
The company will also create several AI inference facilities “across our captive locations throughout the country, which we will scale up to support the growing demand. In parallel, we will partner with leading global technology companies and innovators to bring the most advanced AI models and solutions and tools to India.” (Inferencing is the process of running live data through a trained AI model to make a prediction or complete a task.) The end goal for the company is to create one of the lowest AI inferencing costs in India, which will make AI applications more affordable to everyone.
Jio also introduced Jio Phonecall AI, which allows users to record, store, translate and transcribe calls automatically. It also expanded on Jio Brain, a suite of AI tools and platforms that run through the entire AI lifecycle. After deploying it in Reliance operations, the company plans to offer Jio Brain to other enterprises as well.
“We are also starting to use Jio Brain to drive a similar transformation across other Reliance operating companies, and to fast-track their AI journey as well. I anticipate that by perfecting Jio Brain within Reliance, we will create a powerful AI service platform that we can offer to other enterprises as well,” said Ambani.
On 5G and JioAirFiber
Ambani mentioned that the company now has around 130 million 5G subscribers and it looks to grab a larger slice of the 5G pie. “As 5G phones become more affordable, 5G adoption on Jio’s network will accelerate, further boosting data consumption. With Jio’s lead in 5G coverage, capacity and quality, we expect to capture the lion’s share of the accelerating 5G adoption,” said Ambani.
In addition, the company is looking to grow its presence in the fixed wireless access (FWA) space. It launched JioAirFiber in October last year and claims to have added 1 million customers in the first 100 days.
“We are still streamlining our operations and see potential to accelerate even further,” adds Ambani. The statement hints that possibly JioAirFiber growth is not on schedule to hit its target. Significantly, he didn’t mention the number of JioAirFiber subscribers to date.
Through this initiative, Jio aims to reach 100 million home broadband customers and 20 million small and medium enterprises.
A deep-tech innovator?
Ambani mentioned that Jio networks now carry 8% of the global mobile traffic, which is more than most global operators. Its 490 million subscribers, on average, use 30GB of data every month.
“Jio stands as a true deep-tech innovator. At the core of our success is our fully homegrown 5G stack, developed by Jio’s talented engineers. This end-to-end solution, tailored for India’s unique needs, has proven itself on a national scale,” said Ambani. However, the company is using radio access networks (RAN) from other vendors, including Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia.
He mentioned that operations support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS) used by Jio are also developed by the company itself.
“Jio’s focus on innovation is also reflected in our growing portfolio of intellectual property. Jio is among India’s largest patent holders, with over 350 patents in 5G and 6G technologies alone,” said Ambani.
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