Reliance, Tata cos sign AI partnerships with Nvidia

While Reliance’s telecom and technology subsidiary Jio Platforms Ltd will build a framework for local-language deployment of generative AI, Tata Communications Ltd will build an AI cloud for its clients. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services firm, will also use Nvidia’s AI computing infrastructure to develop generative AI applications for its clients.

Jio Platforms said the partnership will seek “to develop India’s own foundational large language model (LLM) trained on diverse languages.”

Tata Communications will build an AI cloud, which it will offer to its clients in an infrastructure-as-a-service model. An AI cloud is a remote computing platform built specifically for the development and deployment of AI applications and use cases, which, in this case, will be powered by Nvidia’s GH200 AI chip. Jio’s AI infrastructure will also use the same chip.

TCS will also build its own AI infrastructure in partnership with Nvidia’s on-cloud compute access, using which it will develop generative AI applications for its clients. The move comes after the new TCS chief executive K. Krithivasan said during the company’s June quarter earnings call that the company is seeing increasing interest in generative AI—with 50 pilots and research projects, as well as over 100 real-life projects in the service provider’s pipeline.

In a statement, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said India “has data, scale and talent”, adding that through its partnership with Reliance Industries’ Jio Platforms, Nvidia will “build state-of-the-art AI supercomputers in India.” Jio Platforms will also use Nvidia’s DGX Cloud supercomputer-on-cloud service as part of its AI infrastructure. The latter will be hosted across suitable data centres across the country, accounting for a total data centre capacity of over 2,000MW. Reliance Jio will handle the execution, implementation and marketing of the infrastructure, while Nvidia will serve solely as a technology partner.

Akash Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, said the infrastructure will be “secure, sustainable and deeply relevant across India”.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, added, “As India advances from a country of data proliferation to creating technology infrastructure for widespread and accelerated growth, computing and technology super centres… will provide catalytic growth.”

“The advancements in AI have made focus on AI a central priority in governments, industries and society at large. The impact of AI and machine learning is going to be profound across industries and every aspect of our lives. This is a key transformational trend of the decade, and every company must prepare to make this AI transition,” said N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons.

Chandrasekaran, who also chaired India’s B20 presidency, the business track of G20, said at a press conference on 24 August that working committees under the group had recommended developing a common regulatory framework for generative AI.

“Digital transformation by adopting AI at a scale is a key objective. So much can be done on generative AI. It requires regulation in some form. It is important to see how we can come together to create a common regulatory framework to bring responsibility in the use of generative AI, but it should not choke innovation,” he said.

Friday’s announcements follow Huang’s meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit on 4 September. The meeting, as per an Nvidia statement, underlined the company’s “role in the country’s fast-growing technology industry.”

Updated: 09 Sep 2023, 12:27 AM IST