Mr. Mukesh Ambani, the Chairman of Reliance Industries, highlighted that Jio’s Fifth Generation (5G) network comprises an 80 percent indigenously developed stack. Mr. Ambani made this claim in an interview with McKinsey & Company, the American multinational strategy and management consulting firm. He said that the balance of equipment was supplied by the European gear makers, including Ericsson and Nokia. 

In the interview, Mr. Ambani said that as Jio began its journey towards 5G, the company ensured that all the necessities, ranging from hardware and software to the core, the end-to-end manufacturing happens within the company. He further claims that the global gear makers like Ericsson and Nokia were there “just to make sure that the 80% that we put in was good,” as he puts it in the interview. 

Reliance Jio: What does Jio have? 

Jio Platforms (JPL), established in 2019, which maintains the bulk of the operations of Reliance Jio, having 500 million subscribers, owns and has developed 5G radio, core, OSS/BSS, small and pico cells, and other software solutions as part of its homegrown stack. JPL also owns the digital properties of the group. 

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It is among the few Indian companies, including the consortium of TCS, Tejas Networks, and C-DoT, to have its own stack.

Reliance Jio: Biggest Risk Paid Off! 

In the interview, Mr. Ambani acknowledges the fact that Jio was the biggest risk he took, as it was all their money that was invested in Reliance Jio, which, if it failed, would have had very dire consequences. Mr. Ambani calls Reliance Jio the biggest risk Reliance Industries has ventured into. However, he adds further that his company has always taken big risks because, for them, scale is important. 

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This again reaffirms his business acumen in India’s highly competitive telecom landscape, which earlier had multiple players, including some lost ones like Uninor, Aircel, and others. Jio’s disruptive entry into the telecom sector made the then-biggest telcos, like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, and others, rethink and reorganize their houses to address and retain their customers. Moreover, the repercussions of the disruption can be felt in the industry even today. 

Bright Minds and not Technology 

On artificial intelligence (AI) technology, he said Reliance's vision is to "solve the complex problems before society and create wealth for the nation and the people" and take a downstream work approach. 'For this, we need not go into the high-risk GPU game...this has a compelling appeal to many bright minds. As a result, we are attracting the best people,' Mr. Ambani said during the interview.