'My father didn't believe...': Jio's Akash Ambani on Mukesh Ambani's reaction when he got invitation to speak at IIT Bombay

Reliance Jio Infocomm chairman Akash Ambani on Wednesday spoke at Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay about the future plans of the Reliance Industries' telco unit. He also spoke about the reaction of his father (RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani) when he said he got an invitation to speak at IIT Bombay.

"Being at IIT Bombay is part of my bucket list. My father always wanted me to be an engineer. Full disclaimer, I am not an engineer. To be invited to an engineering college of such stature is an honour. In fact, my father was not believing that I was going to come here and speak, so he sent my wife Shloka who is kind enough to be a witness," said Ambani at IIT Bombay Techfest. Akash Ambani holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Brown University.

He also shared his views on the 'transformative' power of artificial intelligence, innovations and initiatives at Jio to make India proud.'

“AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, but it also stands for All Included," said Ambani.

Ambani on Wednesday said the country's largest telco is working with Indian Institute of Technology Bombay to launch a 'Bharat GPT' programme.

The company, a unit of Reliance Industries, is also "comprehensively thinking" to launch an operating system for televisions, he said, adding that it has been working on it for a while now.

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Speaking at the institute's annual Techfest here, the 32-year-old Ambani family scion said building an "ecosystem of development" is very important for the company, and added that work on the vision of "Jio 2.0" is already on.

"We have been working on a project with IIT Bombay to launch a Bharat GPT programme," he said, while speaking about the partnership between Jio and the premier tech school, which goes back to 2014.

At present, we have just scratched the surface with large language models and generative AI and the next decade will be defined by these applications, he said.

Ambani said artificial intelligence will be transforming every area of products and services and added, "We are working very hard to launch AI not only as a vertical inside our organization, but also horizontally across all our sectors," he said.

The company will be launching products and services in the media space, commerce, communication and also devices, he added.

"We have been working on our own OS (operating system) for a while now for the TVs and we are comprehensively thinking about how to launch it," Ambani said.

Ambani said 2024 is a special year for the family, as his brother is set to get married in the year.

He also said that the company is very excited about offering 5G private networks, where it will offer a 5G stack to any enterprise irrespective of its size.

Ambani called India as the "biggest innovation centre" for the next decade, and exuded confidence that the country will be a $6 trillion economy by the end of the decade.

AI is going to "consume everything", Ambani said, describing how his brother-in-law showed him an AI app to control the temperature of his mattress yesterday. "To me, yes AI stands for artificial intelligence, but it also stands for all included," he said.

He said at Jio, the company works with a belief that what it is pursuing is good for India, and termed money as the "byproduct" of the service rendered to the country.

Calling Jio as the largest startup in the world, Ambani said there is a need for young entrepreneurs to not be fearful of failing.

Ambani also asked the entrepreneurs to work for societal good, especially if one is dabbling in the consumer space, and also asked everybody to be deeply passionate about the work they do.

He said technology is a "great equalizer" for it transcends the boundaries including those of demographics and caste, and added that Jio always keeps an eye on the technology of the future.

With inputs from PTI