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How One Man’s Ambition Could Make India the World’s Next AI Superpower Before 2033
If you thought the global AI race was just between the US and China, think again. India just showed up in a very big way.
On February 19, 2026, Mukesh Ambani took the stage at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi and dropped a number that made the entire tech world sit up straight. Reliance Industries, India’s largest conglomerate, is putting in $110 billion over the next seven years to build a full-scale AI computing infrastructure right on Indian soil. That’s the largest private-sector AI bet in history, according to Reuters.
Not Just Talk, Construction Has Already Started
Here’s what makes this announcement worth paying attention to. The work is already happening. Reliance has started building AI-ready data centers in Jamnagar, Gujarat, and expects the first 120 megawatts of capacity to go live in the second half of 2026. To put that in perspective, 120 megawatts is enough to simultaneously power thousands of enterprise AI applications or train multiple large language models at once.
The end goal is gigawatt-scale compute. That puts Reliance in the same conversation as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
Going Green to Power All of This
You can’t run data centers without enormous amounts of energy. Reliance knows this, so they’re building up to 10 gigawatts of renewable energy from solar farms in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh to keep everything running. It’s a smart move financially too, since cheaper energy means cheaper AI services down the road.
India Cannot Afford to Rent Intelligence
This line from Ambani’s speech is the one everyone is talking about. “India cannot afford to rent intelligence,” he said. He wants to do for AI what Jio did for mobile data back in 2016, when it made internet access so cheap that hundreds of millions of Indians came online almost overnight.
His plan, which he calls Jio Intelligence, focuses on multilingual AI tools built for India’s many languages, strong data security, and affordable access for businesses large and small. The idea is to weave AI into Jio’s existing 5G network so that even smaller cities and rural areas aren’t left behind.
India’s Bigger AI Moment
Reliance is not alone here. The Adani Group has pledged $100 billion for AI data centers by 2035, and Tata Group has partnered with OpenAI on its own infrastructure plans. Altogether, India’s biggest conglomerates have committed over $300 billion toward AI, all announced within weeks of each other.
Sam Altman and Sundar Pichai both showed up at the same summit in New Delhi. That alone tells you everything about how seriously the world is watching India right now.
The next decade of AI won’t be built in just one place. And right now, all signs point to India being one of the countries building it.
