Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), another conglomerate, launched another salvo on Thursday with a $110 billion (₹10 trillion) wager to construct India’s sovereign AI backbone, just days after the Adani Group announced a massive $100 billion plan for AI-ready data centers and power.
On the fourth day of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said that the funds would be deployed over a seven-year period by RIL and Jio Platforms (its digital business).
At the same event, N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, revealed that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has chosen the American AI behemoth OpenAI as the anchor client for its next data center. The two businesses will work together to create safe, India-based AI infrastructure with the goal of enhancing long-term compute capacity and data sovereignty.
In order to make AI accessible and inexpensive, Ambani stated that RIL and Jio would construct what he called India’s sovereign compute infrastructure, which would include multi-gigawatt (GW) AI-ready data centers in Jamnagar, capacity supported by green energy, and a nationwide edge network.
India is unable to pay for intelligence rentals. Therefore, in his speech at the summit, Ambani stated that “an 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.” He also stated that “we will reduce the cost of intelligence as dramatically as we did the cost of data.”
On Thursday, RIL’s shares ended the day 2.4% lower at ₹1,407.2 on the National Stock Exchange.
In order to facilitate high-scale computation for AI system training and large-scale inference, the company plans to increase its data center capacity by around 120MW (megawatts) in the second half of 2026. In order to list Jio Platforms on the exchanges, the business is now getting ready to submit draft paperwork.
Chandrasekaran of Tata Sons, meanwhile, stated that the partnership between OpenAI and the Tata Group was a significant turning point in India’s ambition to lead the world in artificial intelligence.
We are happy to collaborate with OpenAI to develop cutting-edge AI infrastructure in India. TCS and OpenAI have a rare chance to revolutionize entire sectors. Chandrasekaran stated, “Together, we will equip India’s youth with the skills they need to thrive in the AI era.”
Earlier this year, TCS declared that it would invest $7 billion (₹55,000–57,000 crore) over the next five to seven years to construct 1GW of AI-ready, independent data center capacity in India, starting with a 100MW baseline capacity.
According to a letter from the business, this infrastructure would allow OpenAI’s most sophisticated models to operate safely in India, providing reduced latency while satisfying data residency, security, and compliance requirements for government and mission-critical workloads.
Later Thursday evening, Chandrasekaran stated that the job of AI will be to improve public services in a fireside discussion with OpenAI cofounder and CEO Sam Altman.
“India is excellent at making significant changes, even when we might not accomplish tiny things correctly. We handle half of all digital payments worldwide. Take a look at how we updated the passport system. AI will help us achieve our goals of equal healthcare, repairing our cities, and bringing equality. “I am glad AI exists,” he remarked.
Data centers are the enabling layer that dictates speed, cost, and trust, and AI scaling requires dependable computation. “The prognosis is faster enterprise adoption and greater local model training, as India’s announced build-out suggests a multi-year ramp up in domestic AI and cloud capacity,” stated S. Anjani Kumar, partner at Deloitte India.
This pattern of investment is similar to that of global tech heavyweights who are declaring capital expenditures for AI infrastructure. “India can become a favored AI hub for global workloads and deployments if it executes on capacity delivery, dependable operations, and trusted governance,” Kumar continued.
India presently has 1.4GW (gigawatt) of operating data center capacity, with an additional 1.4GW being built and 5GW in the planning stages, according to a note published in October by Macquarie Equity Research.
Macquarie analysts state that “supporting regulatory settings, data localization rules, and subsidies from central and state governments, growing use of enterprise cloud, an increase in OTT (over-the-top) content and mobile data demand, and the expansion of digitally native companies.”
Chandrasekaran added that TCS and Tata Communications are working together to develop a “AI operating system” that will enable the development of customized, agentic AI solutions for a variety of industries throughout the world. Employees of the Tata Group will have access to Enterprise ChatGPT in addition to the AI infrastructure that TCS is developing, according to an exchange filing.
Following the announcement, TCS’s stock increased 2% during the day on Thursday before closing at ₹2,675, a 0.7% decrease. The recent introduction of AI models has put pressure on the stocks of IT companies.
According to Ashok Soota, founder and chairman of Happiest Minds, “the idea that IT services will vanish in five years ignores the lessons of history on how technology has always developed to provide additional opportunities.”
Soota asserts that IT services will continue to be crucial for tailoring solutions for a range of industries and guaranteeing that businesses develop more quickly and provide better business results. According to him, AI is turning IT services into more valuable products and enabling us to provide solutions that are quicker, smarter, and more affordable.
Chandrasekaran stated in the conversation with Altman that there is no denying AI’s ability to transform society, empower people, and assist companies in their efforts to reinvent themselves.
There are 1.1 billion people in the workforce. Everyone will be AI-ready for a task that will excite them, according to Chandrasekaran. The remaining 350 million Indians will probably be blue collar workers, while the remaining 750 million will probably become white collar workers. The key is education, which is easy to obtain. We will see a different world after we do. The question is how quickly we can finish it.
