Reliance Taps Databricks to Build Intelligence as Ambani Commits to Democratising AI

Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani has outlined the conglomerate's vision to make AI accessible to every Indian, as the company advances a large-scale data and AI transformation in partnership with Databricks.

Speaking at the Data + AI Summit 2026 hosted by Databricks, Ambani said Reliance's ambitions extend beyond deploying AI within its own businesses to democratising intelligence across the country.

"Our mission is to democratise intelligence for 1.5 billion Indians," Ambani said. "Our motto is simple. AI everywhere for everyone."

The billionaire industrialist said Reliance sees AI as a tool to create broader economic opportunities and improve access to essential services. "We want AI to create a more equal India, bring prosperity to every farmer, entrepreneur, and neighbourhood shopkeeper, transforming education, healthcare, and public services for every Indian," he said.

Ambani argued that India offers a unique environment for developing and testing AI applications."India is perhaps the most demanding test bed for AI because of our scale of aspirations, diversity, language needs, affordability constraints, and speed of adoption," he said. "Solutions that work for India [can] serve other [developing economies]."

Reliance is also deepening its focus on digital infrastructure and AI across its telecom, retail, energy, media and materials businesses. At the centre of that effort is a partnership with Databricks, the US-based data and AI platform provider. Ambani said the collaboration was driven by a broader strategic vision rather than a simple technology upgrade.

"Our ambition was not simply to modernise infrastructure. It was to build the foundation for innovation, productivity, customer value, and societal value," he said.

In a LinkedIn post during the summit, Nick Eayrs, Vice President of Field Engineering for Asia Pacific and Japan at Databricks, described Reliance's programme as "one of the world's largest data and AI transformations."

Reliance has migrated vast amounts of data from its telecom, retail, energy, media, and materials businesses onto a unified Databricks platform. Ambani also mentioned that leaders are already using Databricks Genie “to ask questions in natural language and receive useful intelligence in real time.”

He added that the platform is intended to provide a common data foundation across Reliance's businesses and support AI-powered analytics and natural-language access to enterprise data.

“Together with Databricks, we hope to create a blueprint for how enterprises can harness data and AI. Responsibly, openly and at scale,” he added.

The Reliance chairman also framed AI as an opportunity for emerging economies, arguing that technologies developed for India's scale and complexity could have applications across other developing markets.

"The Global South represents four-fifths of humanity," Ambani said, arguing that solutions built for India could ultimately serve countries facing similar challenges. 

Reliance has been expanding its AI partnerships ever since it committed to invest ₹10 lakh crore ($110 billion) over seven years to build AI infrastructure. It is building an AI-ready data centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat and recently announced that it will lease the facility to Meta. The facility will operate fully on renewable energy and use desalinated seawater for cooling.