Ambani made a call to action to turn India into a hardware manufacturing hub

  Ambani made a call to action to turn India into a hardware manufacturing hub

                            

India stands at the forefront of its digital revolution, and is poised to lead the world in the latest wave of digital industrial revolution, said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Limited, addressing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, union telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and other dignitaries at the opening keynote of the India Mobile Congress 2020. Alongside speaking of India's digital revolution, and how India's robust 4G network infrastructure helped the nation sustain and grow through the months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ambani spoke about the importance of promoting a digital first economy. He further illustrated how India is at the cusp of such a revolution, before presenting four ideas in front of PM Modi, pertaining to how India's economy can grow and thrive on the digital forefront.

"As many as 300 million mobile subscribers in India are still trapped in the 2G era. Urgent policy steps are needed to ensure that these underprivileged people have an affordable smartphone, so that they too can benefit from Direct Benefit Transfer into their bank accounts, and actively participate in the Digital Economy," said Ambani as part of his first idea for promoting India as a world leading digital society. Ambani further added, "India is today among the best digitally connected nations in the world. In order to maintain this lead, policy steps are needed to accelerate early rollout of 5G, and to make it affordable and available everywhere. I assure you that Jio will pioneer the 5G Revolution in India in the second half of 2021. It will be powered by indigenous developed network, hardware and technology components. Jio’s 5G service will be a testimony to your inspiring vision of aatmanirbhar Bharat."Alongside making this commitment, Ambani further affirmed the role that Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, is playing in its bid to support India's digital transformation ambitions. He also highlighted how Jio Platforms is offering its novel technology services in a wide range of critical fields, such as education, healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services and new commerce. "Jio Platforms, with its family of over 20 start-up partners, has built world-class capabilities in Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Big Data, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, Blockchain, etc. Each of these solutions, once proven in India, will be offered to the rest of the world to address global challenges," Ambani added.

Finally, Ambani made a call to action to turn India into a hardware manufacturing hub, and marked union minster R.S. Prasad's efforts to attract the biggest technology companies to come and manufacture their hardware in India. He further underlined that to strengthen and complete the digital transformation, India cannot remain reliant on large-scale imports from other nations, and underlined India's potential as a major, cutting edge semiconductor fabrication industry. "When all the stakeholders work together, we can surely ensure that India’s success in hardware will match our success in software," said Ambani in conclusion to his rousing keynote.