As China’s homegrown AI model challenges the biggies with unprecedented cost efficiency, India’s largest business house is doubling down on its own AI push with a calculated strategy
Published Date – 14 February 2025, 11:35 AM
Hyderabad: DeepSeek has forced a global rethink on AI, but Mukesh Ambani is moving ahead sure-footed, ensuring India isn’t left behind.
As China’s homegrown AI model challenges the biggies, including OpenAI’s GPT-4 with unprecedented cost efficiency, and even as BigTech comes out with their plans for the country one by one, India’s largest business house isn’t rattled.
Instead, Reliance Industries is doubling down on its own AI push with a calculated strategy, building the world’s largest AI-driven data centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat, powered by Nvidia’s advanced semiconductors — high-end chips that come at a steep price but promises to deliver exceptional capability.
“I can assure you that, like we did in data, in a few years from now, we will surprise the world with what India and Indians can achieve in the intelligence market,” Ambani had said at the Nvidia AI Summit India last October.
According to reports, Reliance Industries data centre in Jamnagar will have a capacity of 3 gigawatts. The facility would overshadow Microsoft’s 600-megawatt data centre in Virginia, which is currently the largest data centre. The project could cost between $20 billion and $30 billion, according to a Bloomberg report.
Besides, BharatGPT, which includes partnerships with IITs and Reliance Jio, last year showcased its AI language model, ‘Hanooman,’ during a tech conference in Mumbai. Hanooman is expected to offer services in 11 local languages across sectors like healthcare, governance, finance, and education.
Approximately 78 per cent of Indian businesses have lined up big investment plans in artificial intelligence. “However, that investment is focused on technology rather than people that will have to use it. This highlights the biggest challenge when it comes to unlocking the full potential of Gen AI,” according to Accenture’s Pulse of Change Survey–WEF 2025, which was released in Davos.
“I strongly believe that India should see AI as a ‘solution’ rather than software. India is jumping on to AI mission with massive Nvidia GPU purchase plans. The Deepseek moment is a reminder that accepting the status quo is a wrong strategy. All of us will witness significantly power efficient, high performance, solution-centric chips in the next few years that will shake the likes of Nvidia,” says Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures.
Currently, the United States is the leader in AI infrastructure with nearly 45 per cent of the world’s data centres, as of March 2024. India does not figure even in the top ten.
The Centre last year approved an allocation of over Rs 10,000 crore for the IndiaAI Mission to be infused into building the AI ecosystem initiatives like funding startups and building large language models (LLMs), over the next five years. Nasscom predicts that AI could add $500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025.
Recently, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government will make available 18,000 high-end GPU-based compute facilities for AI development to entities in the country and expects India’s own AI platform within 10 months.
GPU-based compute facilities accelerate the graphics processing capabilities of computers in tasks like gaming, machine learning and video editing.
With more private players jumping in the AI race for a DeepSeek moment, homegrown Reliance’s AI push could give India the headstart it is waiting for.