RELIANCE RISES ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Can RIL do a Jio in Al services?

- SURAJEET DAS GUPTA

Eight years ago, Reliance shook up the telecom market with rock-bottom data prices a fourth of the global average and free voice calls on its 4G network. That made India one of the world's largest data markets.

Now the Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate is getting ready to trigger another disruption by "democratising" the benefits of the hottest new technological gamechanger: Artificial intelligence (AI).

At Reliance Industries' 47th annual general meeting last week, Chairman Ambani spent a sizeable portion of his speech on AI and deep tech such as JioBrain, an AI service platform meant to scale up operations across the conglomerate's various businesses. Meanwhile, Jio, its telecom unit, is working to bring AIpowered features for its users.

Ambani laid out the AI roadmap for the group with the primary aim of ensuring that AI is available to "every Indian everywhere," from mobile consumers to small-scale enterprises, once again at affordable prices.

To do so, the company is taking a route different from that taken by global mobile device hardware companies, which are focusing on keeping mostly AI processing within the device. Reliance, on the other hand, is building a delivery model where AI services and processing will be hosted on the cloud over low latency broadband networks. That will help in taking these services, now limited to a few high-end smartphones priced above ₹60,000, to more affordable 4G and 5G phones, some of which may even be priced below ₹10,000.

Currently, among the few phones powered by AI, there is Samsung's Ultra S24 AI, on which AI processing is done mostly in the device by the chip without any need of the internet. There is also the new Google Pixel 9. There is a buzz that Apple Inc's forthcoming iPhone 16, to be released on September 9, will take the iPhone into AI territory.

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