Reliance and Meta launch joint venture for enterprise AI services in India

/ 2 min read
Summary

The joint venture, announced by Reliance Intelligence Limited — a wholly owned subsidiary of RIL — will see an initial combined investment of around ₹855 crore.

Meta CEO and Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani
Meta CEO and Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has incorporated a new company, Reliance Enterprise Intelligence Limited (REIL), in partnership with Facebook’s Indian arm to build and scale enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) solutions across India.

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The joint venture, announced by Reliance Intelligence Limited — a wholly owned subsidiary of RIL — will see an initial combined investment of around ₹855 crore, with Reliance holding a 70% stake and Meta Platforms Inc.’s subsidiary, Facebook Overseas, Inc., holding the remaining 30%.

According to RIL’s filing, the incorporation of REIL does not constitute a related party transaction, and no regulatory or governmental approvals were required. The move, first revealed at Reliance’s Annual General Meeting in August, signals the conglomerate’s deeper play into AI-driven enterprise services.

The new entity will develop, market, and distribute enterprise AI platforms and tools using Meta’s open-source Llama models and Reliance’s extensive digital infrastructure. It aims to offer two key products: an enterprise AI platform-as-a-service, allowing organisations to customise and deploy generative AI models, and a suite of pre-configured AI solutions tailored for sectors such as sales, marketing, IT operations, finance, and customer service.

“REIL, incorporated in India as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Intelligence, will become the joint venture company as per the amended and restated joint venture agreement (“JV Agreement”) with Facebook Overseas, Inc. (“Facebook”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”). REIL will be engaged, inter alia, in developing, marketing and distributing enterprise AI services,” the exchange filing said.

Reliance’s AI arm will invest ₹2 crore towards the initial subscription of 20 million equity shares of ₹10 each. The company said the partnership is designed to lower the total cost of ownership for enterprises by providing flexible deployment options across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.

Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman and managing Director of Reliance Industries, in a filing in August, said the collaboration aims to make enterprise-grade AI accessible to all. “Partnering with Meta brings our vision of providing AI to every Indian and enterprise to life - by combining Meta’s most widely adopted open-source Llama models with our deep expertise across multiple industries. We will democratise enterprise-grade AI for every Indian organisation - from ambitious SMBs to blue-chip corporates,” he said.

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the partnership a significant step in bringing open-source AI to real-world business use. “We’re excited to deepen our partnership with Reliance to bring the power of open-source AI to Indian developers and enterprises. Through this joint venture, we’re putting Meta’s Llama models into real-world use,” he said.

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