Mukesh Ambani at AGM says Reliance is on track to more than double in size by decade's end

If it was oil and chemicals that propelled Reliance Industries to being the large behemoth in the 1990s and 2000s, new energy and new technology are set to be the next big drivers. Addressing shareholders at the 47th post-IPO annual general meeting on Thursday, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries (RIL) said the size of the oil-to-telecom conglomerate would more than double before the end of the decade and growing faster in the decades ahead.

The company also separately announced that its board would meet on September 5 to consider the issue of bonus shares in the 1:1 ratio. This announcement cheered investors, with the RIL stock closing 1.5 per cent higher at Rs 3,040.85.  

Focus on new energy business

A key focus of Ambani's AGM speech was the update on its new energy business. It was at the AGM in 2021 that Ambani announced RIL's plans to enter the new energy business with an investment of Rs 75,000 crore. He is now confident that in the next 5-7 years the business could deliver the earning capacity, what its O2C business achieved in 40 years. RIL's telecom arm Jio and Reliance Retail are also expected to double their revenues and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in the next 3-4 years, according to him.

Sharing his update, he informed shareholders on Thursday that the production of their own solar photo-voltaic modules would commence by the end of this year.

"In the following quarters, we will complete the first phase of our integrated solar production facilities. This includes modules, cells, glass, wafer, ingot, and polysilicon, with an initial annual capacity of 10 GW," he noted.

According to Ambani, the giga-factory is designed for modular expansion at minimal cost and in the shortest time possible. RIL has also significantly enhanced its research and development capabilities by establishing a prototyping, testing and validation lab in India and the company is also expanding its advanced solar technology lab in Singapore. This would provide a path to upgrade its first-generation products through cost reductions, optimisation of supply chains and improvements in efficiency, he said.

Separately, RIL has also begun construction of an integrated advanced chemistry-based battery manufacturing facility with an annual capacity of 30 GWh at Jamnagar, the production of which will commence by the second half of next year. The modular design will allow it to rapidly expand annual capacity in multiples of 30 GWh, catering to domestic and global demand.

"We will start by assembling battery energy storage systems (BESS) for utility-scale applications and pack solutions for residential, commercial, industrial, telecom, and mobility markets. Progressively, over the next few quarters, we will integrate backwards into cell manufacturing and eventually into battery chemicals production. This will create the world's only fully integrated battery giga-factory, driving synergies across the value chain," said Ambani.

Group’s plan to set up biogas plants

At the AGM in 2023, Ambani announced the group's plans to set up biogas plants.

Sharing the update at this year's AGM, he noted that the company was rapidly expanding its investments in bioenergy and from two demo units a couple of years ago, the aim was to reach 55 operating compressed biogas plants by 2025.

The biogas initiative, he claimed, would increase the income of farmers and generate over 30,000 direct and indirect jobs in rural areas. RIL has also initiated an energy plantation pilot on 1,000 acres of arid wasteland to establish a first-of-its-kind integrated compressed biogas plant.

Jamnagar in Gujarat will become the "cradle" of its new energy business by next year and the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy giga manufacturing complex will be the world's largest most modern, modular and integrated ecosystem at a single location, envisioned Ambani.

"We are on track to fully commit and invest up to Rs 75,000 crore to establish this manufacturing ecosystem, extensively enabled by all emerging technologies including AI, IoT, Machine Learning, and Robotics. Our complete ownership and automation of the integrated value chains will allow us to maximise margins that are higher than those of stand-alone, non-integrated players," said Ambani.

To support the investments, RIL was committed to partnering with global technology companies, building R&D capabilities and expanding its large dynamic talent pool, he added.

Meanwhile, RIL has secured access to nearly 2,000 acres of land at Gujarat's Kandla port, complementing its existing marine infrastructure at Jamnagar and this integrated coastal infrastructure will provide the company with a competitive advantage for the production, storage, evacuation, and shipping of green fuels to various domestic and global markets, pointed Ambani.

"We believe that our New Energy business will be truly unique—delivering cash flows that are less cyclical and more predictable. I am, therefore, confident that in the next 5 to 7 years, our New Energy growth engine can aim to deliver an earning capacity, like what our existing O2C business earns and what it has achieved over the last four decades," Ambani proclaimed.

Apart from new energy, new technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) was also a major focus of the AGM today.

To streamline AI adoption, Jio is developing a suite of tools and platforms that span the entire AI lifecycle, which it calls Jio Brain.

"Jio Brain enables us to accelerate AI adoption across Jio, driving faster decisions, more accurate predictions, and better understanding of customer needs. We are also starting to use Jio Brain to drive a similar transformation across other Reliance operating companies, and to fast-track their AI journey as well," said Ambani.

He added that by perfecting Jio Brain within RIL, it could create a powerful AI service platform that could be offered to other enterprises too. It plans to establish gigawatt-scale AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar powered by RIL's green energy.

"We also plan to create multiple AI inference facilities across our captive locations throughout the country, which we will scale up to support the growing demand. In parallel, we will partner with leading global technology companies and innovators to bring the most advanced AI models and solutions and tools to India," said Ambani.

As a part of a welcome offer, Jio users will get 100 GB of free cloud storage to store and access their photos, videos, documents and other digital content and data. This Jio AI-Cloud welcome offer is planned to be launched starting Diwali this year.

Upcoming features for Jio TV and Jio phone users

At the AGM, Akash Ambani also threw light on various new features coming to Jio TV and Jio phone users. This includes Jio Phonecall AI, which lets users use AI to record and store any call in the Jio cloud and automatically transcribe voice to text. This feature is also capable of summarising the call and transcribing it into another language.

RIL also continues to expand its existing businesses like retail and O2C into newer segments.

For instance, in jewellery, Reliance Retail has ambitious plans to enter the luxury jewellery segment. It is also exploring the fashion jewellery and accessories segment to broaden its market reach, noted Isha Ambani.

Separately, RIL aims to leverage its exploration and production expertise to develop low-carbon energy solutions, including geothermal energy, underground coal gasification, natural hydrogen, and helium.

RIL is building India's first world-class integrated carbon fibre plant at Hazira, which it says will rank among the top three units globally.

Ambani further said that RIL's new integrated facilities in the Vinyl value chain will add 1.5 million tonnes per annum of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and CPVC (chlorinated PVC) at Dahej and Nagothane by the year 2026-27. It is also adding a million tonnes of speciality polyester capacity by the year 2026-27, which will be further integrated backwards with a 3 million tonne PTA (purified terephthalic acid) capacity by 2027.