The Adani Group on Tuesday announced that its digital connectivity solutions arm, Adani Data Networks Ltd (ADNL), has acquired the right to use 400MHz of spectrum in the 26GHz millimetre wave band.
The company has secured the spectrum for 20 years in the recently concluded 5G spectrum auctions held by the Department of Telecommunications.
In a statement issued after buying the 5G spectrum, the company said that acquiring 400MHz of spectrum is its first step in integrating its digital infrastructure portfolio, which includes data centres, terrestrial fibre and submarine cables, industrial cloud, AI innovation labs, cybersecurity and superapps.
Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group, said, “We believe the next data surge will be created more by machines than by people as all devices get interconnected. This data will need to be streamed, stored, processed, and analysed by other machines in real time and this capability will change every single industry. It will help build a set of services that the market cannot even fully conceptualise today. This volume will be exponentially higher and generated at the edges, especially in a country like India, where the Tier 2 and 3 cities are witnessing the fastest all-round growth.”
He said the group’s entry into the industrial 5G space will allow its portfolio companies to offer new add-on services that capitalise on its digital segments.
The newly acquired 5G spectrum is expected to help create a unified digital platform to accelerate the digitisation of the group’s core infrastructure, primary industry and B2C business portfolio.
“The acceleration of digital enablement will have material long-term improvement in the rate of return on assets,” a statement said.
Adani Group’s broader strategy to digitally integrate its current and future businesses includes linking its data centres through a network of submarine and terrestrial cables, building the largest industrial operations cloud in the world, developing a superapp to offer a suite of services across its400-million consumer base, and establishing a world-class AI centre of excellence.
“5G solves our nation’s connectivity needs in unprecedented ways and will be crucial in helping us prepare the IT infrastructure we need for the future,” Adani said.