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

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.

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.

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.