Mukesh Ambani made a slew of new announcements at the Annual General Meeting including ₹75,000 crore investment in next three years into RIL's new energy business, most affordable smartphone in partnership with Google, and setting up of India’s first world-scale carbon fibre plant

"Reliance will make it's New Energy business a truly global business. In 2016, we launched Jio with the aim of bridging the Digital Divide in India. Now, in 2021, we are launching our new energy business with the aim of bridging the green energy divide in India and globally," Ambani said.

As part of this plan, RIL is setting up a Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex on 5,000 acres in Jamnagar.

 

"The first part of the plan is to build Four Giga Factories. These will manufacture and fully integrate all the critical components of the New Energy ecosystem. One, for the production of solar energy --- we will build an integrated solar photovoltaic module factory. Two, for the storage of intermittent energy --- we will build an advanced energy storage battery factory. Three, for the production of green hydrogen --- we will build an electrolyser factory. Four, for converting hydrogen into motive and stationary power we will build a fuel cell factory." Ambani said.

Aramco deal

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Chairman of Saudi Aramco and the Governor of the Public Investment Fund, will join the Board of Reliance Industries Ltd as an Independent Director.

"He is one of the most renowned names in energy and finance globally. I am sure that we will immensely benefit from his rich experience of running one of the world’s largest companies, and also one of the largest Sovereign Wealth Funds in the world. His joining our Board is also the beginning of internationalisation of Reliance," Mukesh Ambani said while addressing the shareholders .

On the strategic partnership with Saudi Aramco, Ambani said "These discussions have been held in the spirit of mutual commitment to convert our long-standing relationship into a perpetual partnership. This continued engagement and resolve from both sides, even during this pandemic, is a testimony of strong relationship between Saudi Aramco and Reliance. I expect our partnership to be formalised in an expeditious manner during this year," he said

Carbon Fibre plant

Reliance Industries is investing in India’s first world-scale carbon fibre plant for supporting hydrogen and solar ecosystems. "Our new Green Vision also has immense benefits for our existing O2C business. First, we will use solar energy on an economically attractive basis to decarbonise our existing O2C business and accelerate our journey to become net carbon zero. Second, we will use Green Hydrogen and CO2 as raw materials to develop a road map for new Green Chemicals, Green Fertilizer and e-fuels. Third, we will commercialise with global partners our own world beating proprietary Multi-zone Catalytic Cracking (MCC) Technology to optimise the fossil fuel transition to sustainable chemical and material building blocks. Thus, we will transform our legacy business into sustainable, circular and net zero carbon materials business. One that will provide growing returns over several decades," Ambani said.

JioPhone Next with Google

Reliance Industries has announced the launch of JioPhone, a smartphone jointly developed with global internet major Google. The phone – JioPhone Next - would be commercially available in the market from the auspicious date of Ganesh Chaturthi, that is September 10, this year. And as you have come to expect from Jio, it is my promise that JioPhone Next will be by far the most affordable smartphone not just in India, but globally,” RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani told shareholders on Thursday.

“Jio has truly democratised digital connectivity in India… by offering the highest quality, most affordable 4G broadband services in the world. India still has nearly 300 million mobile users who are unable to escape from inefficient and exorbitant 2G services, because even a basic 4G smartphone remains unaffordable for these users,” Ambani said.

“Therefore, an ultra-affordable 4G smartphone is essential to make India “2G-mukt”.

JioPhone Next is powered by an extremely optimised version of the Android Operating System, that has been jointly developed by Jio and Google, especially for the indian market,” he added.

5G Ready

Reliance Jio Infocomm, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), will become the first company in the country to launch 5G services. The company is ready with entire 5G network and infrastructure across the country, and also at its centre in Navi Mumbai, RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani told shareholders on Thursday.

“We will be the first to launch 5G in the country,” Ambani added.

Partnership with Facebook

Mukesh Ambani said that the initial set of integrations between WhatsApp and JioMart has been launched on a trial basis. "..and the response from WhatsApp and JioMart customers is encouraging… along with lots of valuable feedback. Our joint teams are actively developing the full New Commerce solution linking merchants and consumers, and we plan to progressively launch these over the next few quarters," Ambani said.

Partnership with Microsoft

Reliance has operationalized an initial 10 MW capacity of JIO-AZURE Cloud Datacentres in two cities - Jamnagar and Nagpur.

"We are currently onboarding the initial group of pilot customers... and we plan to expand our datacentre capacity and our offerings to a growing number of SMEs and start-ups over the coming quarters," Ambani said

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