India Cannot Afford to Rent Intelligence: Mukesh Ambani

At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, the data center sector in India saw massive investment that underscore its central role in the country’s AI infrastructure commitment. Conglomerate Reliance Industries and its telecom arm Jio will invest $109.8 billion over the next seven years to build artificial intelligence and data infrastructure, its chairman Mukesh Ambani said.

This is not a standalone instance. Overall, the summit highlighted $250 billion worth of deals across AI infrastructure, with data centers at the core of these announcements.

“This is not a speculative investment. It is not for chasing valuation. This is patient, disciplined, nation-building capital designed to create durable economic value and strategic resilience for decades to come. The biggest constraint in AI today is not talent or imagination. There is scarcity and high cost of compute,” the chairman said.

Jio Intelligence will build India’s sovereign compute infrastructure through three bold initiatives: Firstly, the company has already started construction on multi-gigawatt, AI-ready data-centres at Jamnagar; secondly, its Green Energy Advantage is an in-house energy advantage with up to 10 GW of ready green-power surplus, anchored by solar in both Kutch and Andhra Pradesh; thirdly, through its edge-compute layer, deeply integrated with Jio’s network, will make intelligence responsive, low-latency and affordable, close to where Indians live, learn and work.

“Our resolve is clear, make intelligence as ubiquitous as connectivity. When compute become infrastructure, innovation will become inevitable,” he added.

The AI story has shifted from “Who has the best model” to “Who can build the strongest ecosystem for speed and scale of usage. Therefore, the heavy weight will build a deep partnership ecosystem with Indian enterprises, startups, IITs, IISc, and research institutions.

With an aim to work shoulder-to-shoulder with India’s leading industrial groups to embed AI across manufacturing, logistics, energy, finance, retail, agriculture and healthcare, “We will empower startups with affordable compute and co-development platforms. We aspire to produce global breakthroughs in compute architecture, foundation models, and energy efficiency designed in India, rooted in our values, powered by our talent, and scaled for humanity,” he explained.

To achieve its AI ambitions, the company will partner with the very best tech companies in the world: not as importers of intelligence, but as co-architects of a new AI century.

Jio Intelligence is guided by five non-negotiable principles. AI for India’s deep-tech and advanced manufacturing leadership. Reaching not just large enterprises but agriculture, small businesses, and the informal sector.

The platform will not simply be a search or an ask tool; It will primarily be a resource for multiplying productivity and efficiency, world-leading multilingual AI capability across all Indian languages.

“When farmers and artisans speak to AI in their own words and students learn in their own mother tongue this is not convenient, it is inclusion,” he said.

Responsibility, security, data residency and trust will be the core at Jio, “We will prove that AI does not take away jobs. Rather, it will create new high-skill work opportunities.”

Jio has already started AI applications for the most pressing challenges in inclusive development. “The unique strength of India is that it serves as the vital bridge connecting the Global South and the Global North,” the chairman explained.