Mukesh Ambani, Chariman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited

Since its service launch in September 2016, Reliance Jio has transformed India’s digital landscape. The company has emerged as the industry leader in terms of wireless subscribers and has achieved several milestones, both operationally and financially. The telco’s networks have seen a surge in data consumption, especially with the expedited roll-out of 5G services. Jio is now betting big on artificial intelligence (AI) to drive its business growth and revenues in the years to come. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited, shared his views on India’s thriving digital economy, the promise of emerging technologies and Jio’s role in the telecom sector at various industry events during 2024. Edited excerpts from some of his recent addresses…

Jio’s expansion has driven data consumption across the farthest corners of India. With a subscriber base of about 490 million, Jio is growing to become the world’s largest mobile data company. The company’s network carries nearly 8 per cent of global mobile traffic, surpassing even major global operators. Each Jio customer, on average, uses over 30 GB of data monthly.

5G journey

Jio has played a pivotal role in India’s journey to create one of the world’s most advanced 5G networks and the fastest transnational 5G roll-out in the world. Since its service launch in October 2022, over 130 million customers have embraced Jio True 5G. Currently, 5G accounts for 31 per cent of the company’s wireless data traffic. Jio could smoothly transition its entire 4G customer base to 5G, with minimal additional capital expenditure. It offers its 5G customers the complete ecosystem of connectivity, devices, support services and value-added services. Through Reliance Retail, Jio has one of the most expansive sales and support networks for 5G devices and services across India. The company has plugged all leading 5G smartphone original equipment manufacturers into this network to ensure nationwide availability and adoption of the widest range of 5G devices.

Jio has also developed its own fully indigenous 5G stack, making it one of the few telecom companies in the world to do so. The 100 per cent in-house developed 5G stack perfectly aligns with the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat vision. It features advanced technologies such as standalone 5G architecture, carrier aggregation and network slicing, with advanced AI/machine learning (ML) capabilities that optimise its vast network for superior quality, reliability and user experience. The 5G stack is fully cloud-native, software-defined and digitally managed, and supports advanced features such as quantum security. It is designed to seamlessly integrate with 4G and 5G equipment from other global vendors.

Jio’s portfolio of 5G radios ranges from small cells to large tower-based radios, addressing the entire spectrum of outdoor and indoor usage scenarios.

Additionally, the company has launched JioAirFiber, its 5G-based home broadband service. Offering high speed broadband, the service is available across 7,577 towns across India, and in just 100 days since its introduction, the service has acquired 1 million customers. As more customers are expected to migrate to 5G, the company is gearing up to capture the lion’s share of the accelerating 5G adoption.

Using its indigenous 5G stack, Jio was able to launch commercial services on the millimetre wave spectrum using standalone 5G. This high-capacity, low-latency layer will significantly enhance private 5G, home broadband and enterprise use cases. The telco has also built its own low-power small cells to go deeper into specific pockets of high consumption, such as tourist spots and temples, in a highly energy-efficient manner.

Jio has become one of the largest filers of global patents from India for digital technologies, with over 350 filed patents in 5G and 6G technologies alone.

Focus areas

The scale of Jio’s operations and the advantages of deep penetration have helped it grow stronger with the launch of each new offering. Four exciting frontiers for Jio’s growth are: the consumer segment, powered by Jio 5G and JioBharat; the home segment, turbocharged by JioAirFiber; the business segment, with its large untapped potential; and Jio Platforms’ opportunity for global expansion. Collectively, these frontiers provide Jio with an opportunity for multifold revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation growth in the coming years.

There is also a fifth, and most exciting, frontier of growth for Jio – AI. The company is rapidly augmenting its talent pool and capabilities to assimilate the latest global innovations in AI, especially the recent advances in generative AI. Looking ahead, Jio Platforms aims to lead the effort in developing India-specific AI models and AI-powered solutions across domains, thereby delivering the benefits of AI to Indian citizens, businesses and the government alike.

Evolving AI ecosystem

AI has the potential to revolutionise all sectors of the Indian economy. Four sectors that will benefit the most from AI are:

  • Agriculture: Intelligent tools can be used to conserve water, manage other resources efficiently, make use of accurate weather predictions and grow more innovative crops. This will optimise crop yields, control pests, reduce waste and enhance environmental sustainability. It will also lead to unimaginable growth in farm productivity, new economic activities in rural areas, and attractive and abundant livelihoods.
  • Education: AI can offer personalised learning experiences, helping students learn at their own pace and in their own style, regardless of their location or background.
  • Healthcare: AI can assist doctors in diagnosing diseases more accurately and faster. It will improve diagnosis and treatment, enable the early detection of diseases, personalise treatment plans and promote preventive and predictive cures, especially for children and senior citizens.
  • Small businesses: AI Vyapar will enable merchants and small businesses to achieve high levels of innovation and productivity. It will automate routine tasks, enhance decision-making with data-driven insights, and open new avenues for growth and competition. Using AI, even a small business owner operating in a Tier III city will be able to compete on a global scale.

Propelled by its “AI Everywhere for Everyone” vision, the company has developed its AI platform, Jio Brain. Jio Brain has a rich set of over 500 representational state transfer application programming interfaces (APIs) and data APIs for creating ML-enabled services. Apart from customised enterprise and large-scale large language model capabilities, advanced AI features for images, videos, text, documents, speech and inbuilt AI algorithms are available “as a service”.

To add to this, the company is committed to the concept of “connected intelligence” – every user desires plenty and affordable data storage capacity in the cloud, with the highest levels of privacy and security. With secure cloud data storage, AI can deliver intelligent, personalised services over the network. The company has launched Jio AI-Cloud, bringing a powerful and affordable solution where cloud data storage and data-powered AI services are available to everyone everywhere.

Support to SMBs

Jio’s impact on small-and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) cannot be overstated. Over a million SMBs have adopted Jio’s services, benefiting from affordable and reliable internet connectivity, cloud computing and business management tools. This has helped India’s SMB sector grow and become more competitive in the global marketplace.

The company has also focused on the enterprise sector, with over 80 per cent of the top 5,000 large enterprises in India being Reliance Jio customers. The company’s tailored solutions, which include high speed internet, cloud storage and cybersecurity services, have helped businesses digitise their operations and expand their digital footprint.

Further, Jio’s operations support systems and business support systems are also fully home-grown. These platforms ensure top-tier service quality and efficiency.

The way forward

India’s unparalleled demographics and rapid technological advancements make it one of the most exciting growth stories in the world. It has a unique opportunity to lead by example through its investments in revolutionary breakthroughs in technology, especially in AI, computing, clean energy, robotics, advanced manufacturing and digital infrastructure. Jio aims to play a pivotal role in India’s digital economy and will continue to collaborate with leading global technology companies and innovators to bring the most advanced AI models, solutions and tools to the country.