India Will Not Rent Intelligence: Ambani’s Sovereign AI Vision At AI Impact Summit 2026

At the AI Impact Summit 2026, Mukesh Ambani positioned artificial intelligence as India’s next infrastructure revolution and a defining lever of national sovereignty. His message was clear and repeated in operational terms: India must build its own AI backbone.

“India cannot afford to rent intelligence,” he said, framing the country’s AI strategy as a matter of long-term economic and strategic independence.

Ambani aligned his remarks with the Prime Minister’s vision of an AI-powered Viksit Bharat and argued that the same template could serve the wider Global South. 

If deployed wisely, he said,AI can usher in “an era of superabundance" and enable “a world without poverty and a future of prosperity for all the 8 billion people on our beautiful planet.”

AI as infrastructure, not incremental technology

Ambani stressed that AI marks a fundamental shift.

“Artificial intelligence is not just another technology,” he said. “AI is the mantra." He described it as the force that powers every "yantra", enabling machines and systems to work faster, better, and smarter. Comparing AI to a modern-day Akshay Patra, he argued it offers limitless augmentation in knowledge, efficiency, and productivity.

Yet he acknowledged the global divide emerging around compute and capability. “Will AI concentrate power in the hands of a few? Or will it democratise opportunity for all?” he asked.

India’s digital scale as AI foundation

Ambani pointed to India’s digital transformation over the past decade: nearly one billion internet users, among the lowest data costs globally, 1.4 billion Aadhaar digital IDs, and more than 12 billion UPI transactions monthly.

He argued that India’s digital public infrastructure provides a scalable foundation for AI deployment and that no country can match India’s combined strengths in demography, democracy, digital infrastructure, and data generation.

Three announcements to build sovereign compute

Ambani made three major announcements on behalf of Reliance and Jio.

First, he declared a transition from connectivity to intelligence.

“Jio connected India to the internet era. Jio will now connect India to the intelligence era.”

He said the company will deliver AI capabilities across citizens, enterprises, and government services with affordability and scale similar to its telecom expansion.

Second, Reliance and Jio will invest Rs 1,00,000 crore over the next seven years. He described it as “patient discipline nation, building capital", focused on durable value and strategic resilience.

Third, Jio Intelligence will build sovereign compute infrastructure, including gigawatt-scale AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar. More than 120 MW of capacity is expected to come online in the second half of 2026, with a roadmap to multi-gigawatt scale supported by up to 10 GW of green energy.

“When compute becomes infrastructure, innovation will become inevitable,” he said.

Inclusion, language, and employment

Ambani outlined multilingual AI, data security, and ecosystem partnerships as non-negotiable principles. He emphasised AI access in Indian languages, stating that inclusion means enabling farmers, students, and small businesses to interact with AI in their mother tongue.

Addressing job concerns directly, he said, “We will prove that AI does not take away jobs. Rather, it will create new high-skill work opportunities."

He added that the AI race has shifted from building the best standalone model to building the strongest ecosystem for scale and speed of usage.

Ambani closed by urging collaboration over technological fragmentation.

“AI works its magic through sharing, not hoarding, through collaboration, not conflict,” he said.

His address positioned AI as infrastructure, a sovereignty strategy, and a social transformation tool combined. The central proposition was clear: intelligence must become as ubiquitous and affordable as connectivity. The scale of investment and execution will determine whether that vision materialises.