At the Annual General Meeting (AGM) yesterday, Reliance Jio announced that Jio and Microsoft have entered into a globally unique long-term alliance to accelerate the digital transformation of India. This 10-year commitment combines the world-class capabilities of both companies to offer a detailed set of solutions comprising connectivity, computing, storage solutions, and other technology services and applications essential for Indian businesses and will span the broad Reliance Industries ecosystem including its existing and new businesses.
As part of this alliance, Jio will build new custom solutions on Microsoft Azure for large enterprises who have already benefited from Microsoft’s technology platforms. Companies will also have easy and affordable access to best-in-class technologies like data analytics, AI, cognitive services, blockchain, IoT and edge computing to accelerate India’s digital transformation and bring the latest technologies to millions of businesses across the country.
All startups can register for their custom-designed package on Jio.com from 1st January, 2020. Jio will also invest and financially support those startups that have the potential to address India’s big needs in agriculture, healthcare, education and skill development which will boost the creation of new livelihoods.
As part of this new agreement:
- Jio will provide its internal workforce with cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools available with Microsoft 365 and will migrate its non-network applications to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
- Jio’s connectivity infrastructure that aims to connect everyone, everything, everywhere will promote the adoption of the Microsoft Azure cloud platform within its growing ecosystem of startups, as part of Jio’s cloud–first strategy.
- Jio will set up datacenters in locations across India, consisting of next-generation compute, storage and networking capabilities, and Microsoft will deploy its Azure platform in these datacenters to support Jio’s offerings. The initial two datacenters, which can house IT equipment consuming up to 7.5 MW of power, are being set up in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. These are targeted to be fully operational in calendar year 2020.
- Jio will leverage the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to develop innovative cloud solutions focused on the needs of Indian businesses. Through these Jio-developed solutions:a. Indian startups will have access to efficient and affordable cloud infrastructure and platform services, enabling them to develop innovative products and services faster and more cost-effectively.b. Small and medium businesses in India will have access to a range of cloud-based productivity, collaboration and business applications including Office 365, enabling them to compete more effectively in the Indian marketplace.
c. Large companies will be able to accelerate their own digital transformations by leveraging new Jio solutions that can work with Microsoft offerings already in use today within many large enterprises.
d. The partner ecosystem in India will have the opportunity to leverage Jio’s new offerings to serve the unique needs of their customers and rapidly grow their businesses.
- Jio will be executing on its vision of integrated speech and computer vision solutions for Indian customers by working together with Microsoft to develop solutions that support major Indian languages and dialects, which will promote the adoption of technology across all cross-sections of Indian society.