Google Cloud Partnership with Reliance Jio to Boost 5G Plans
In Order to Boost 5G Plans, Google Cloud Has Partnered with Reliance Jio
New Delhi: Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has formed a cloud partnership with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. in India, assisting the country’s largest wireless carrier with technology solutions for its enterprise and consumer offerings as it prepares to launch 5G services.
Through its partnership with Google Cloud, Jio now has access to the expertise of a global tech giant as it expands digital services to small and medium businesses (SMEs) and individual customers. It also gives Google access to Reliance’s unrivalled scale in new-age businesses ranging from telecommunications to e-commerce.
Jio is a subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries NSE -0.17%, an oil-to-retail conglomerate.
“It’s a big partnership, and it involves a lot of different parts of Alphabet working together,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. In addition to the communications business, our partnership with Reliance Jio extends to health, retail and other areas of the company. India is home to a large number of consumers as well as many businesses that rely on Reliance for services.
While Google is working on 5G with other telecom companies around the world, the Jio-Google cloud partnership is one of the largest for the California-based company, according to Kurian.
He refused to reveal the terms of Jio’s cloud contract.
In 2019, Jio announced a 10-year partnership with Microsoft Corp., with the goal of building data centers across India that will be hosted on the Azure cloud in order to serve the country’s booming start-up economy. In 2016, the company launched with low-cost data plans and free voice services, causing a stir in India’s telecom market. It has pushed several competitors out of the market and now has over 422 million customers, making it India’s largest mobile carrier.
Google invested $4.5 billion in Jio’s parent company, Jio Platforms, last year, earning it a seat on the company’s board alongside Facebook, which has also invested $5.7 billion in the digital unit.
Jio, which is backed by Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp, has previously stated that it will “pioneer the 5G revolution” in India in 2021.