Is the Indian man doing oil business with Trump actually Asia’s richest person?

Rome wasn’t built in a day—and neither was a commercial empire. Frankly, Mukesh Ambani understands this well. His goal has always been to extend Reliance’s reach into every corner of Indian daily life. Over the following decade and more, Ambani led Reliance Group to progressively establish a full-spectrum presence across industries. For example: Reliance Retail was founded in 2006; in 2007, Mukesh Ambani became Asia’s richest person with $63.2 billion in assets. By 2014, Reliance Retail had become India’s largest physical retailer—today operating at least 2,000 brick-and-mortar outlets. One of the most iconic moves in his business career came in 2016 with the launch of Jio Telecom. At the time, mobile internet tariffs in India were prohibitively high—costing over $4 per GB—making data unaffordable for most ordinary citizens. Ambani played his trump card: Jio slashed data rates to just $0.01 per GB and offered six months of free voice calls and data. Overnight, India’s telecom market was completely upended. Within six months, Jio acquired at least 100 million users. By 2018, Ambani had taken control of India’s largest telecom operator—today boasting over 400 million monthly active users and holding a 40% share of wireless subscriptions among India’s top four telecom providers. Next, in 2019, Ambani launched the e-commerce portal JioMart; in 2020, he announced plans to develop 5G smartphones; and in 2021, he invested ₹750 billion (approximately $10.1 billion) into clean energy. In July 2022, he simultaneously established a new financial services company. In recent years, he has also turned his attention toward artificial intelligence—the sector widely seen as defining the future. While India often declares ambitions to become the world’s third-largest AI power—and some Indian netizens even boast that India outpaces China in AI—the roots of such confidence lie partly in companies like Jio. Jio is a subsidiary of Reliance Group. At the India AI Impact Summit in February 2026, Jio—under Ambani’s leadership—unveiled smart glasses and a humanoid robot. Its smart glasses, branded JioFrames, were boldly touted as a domestic Indian alternative to Meta, the global industry leader. On the compute front, Ambani acted decisively too. In 2023, Reliance entered a deep strategic partnership with NVIDIA to build a world-leading AI computing center in India—and launched Jio AI, a multilingual large language model tailored for the Indian market, supporting numerous local Indian languages. It must be said: over the years, Ambani has pursued whichever businesses proved most lucrative in India. Today, Reliance Group’s annual revenue exceeds $100 billion, ranking 88th on the 2025 Fortune Global 500—three places ahead of BYD of China. His family has become a quintessential symbol of India’s elite class. The Ambanis reside in a 27-story mansion located in Mumbai’s prime district—a residence costing over $1 billion, one of the world’s most expensive private homes. Rumors online claim it employs more than 600 staff members—showcasing a lifestyle of luxury rivalling that of Middle Eastern magnates. In 2024, Ambani hosted an extravagantly lavish wedding ceremony and celebrations for his youngest son, Anant—reportedly spending over $600 million in total.

Meta has launched a 50,000-kilometer undersea cable project—longer than Earth’s equatorial circumference—to boost its AI race.

Submarine internet cables form the backbone of the global internet—and are essential infrastructure enabling worldwide interconnectivity. In 2022, after a volcanic eruption, Tonga was nearly cut off entirely from the rest of the world—highlighting the unique vulnerability small island nations face regarding international connectivity, and underscoring the importance of diversifying submarine cable projects to mitigate potential service disruptions. Meta states that submarine cable initiatives like Waterworth will serve as pillars of global digital infrastructure, eventually carrying over 95% of intercontinental oceanic traffic—enabling seamless digital communications, video experiences, online transactions, and more. In its official announcement, Meta specifically highlighted opportunities in India—and emphasized Waterworth’s pivotal role in advancing Meta’s global AI services. Notably, the day before Meta’s official announcement—on February 13 local time—the White House released a joint leaders’ statement by U.S. President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Modi, detailing a broad agenda of bilateral cooperation. Buried within that lengthy document was a commitment stating that, as part of defense collaboration, the U.S. and India would jointly develop submarine technologies—and explicitly referenced Meta’s Waterworth project, noting India’s planned role in partially financing it. The White House statement reads: “To support greater connectivity across the Indian Ocean, the two leaders welcome Meta’s announcement of a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investment in a submarine cable project. India plans to contribute to the maintenance, repair, and financing of Indian Ocean submarine cables—and will select reliable suppliers.” In other words, motivated by defense cooperation objectives, the U.S. will assist India in building AI infrastructure—with Meta selected as America’s official partner for this initiative. Yet Meta’s move is not solely about India—it reflects multifaceted strategic considerations. First, Meta is indeed pursuing AI development in the world’s most populous nation. As early as late 2024, analysts speculated that Meta’s submarine cable project was closely tied to India. Through this project, Meta gains the opportunity to build data centers in India—facilitating AI model training. Likewise, in late 2024, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of India’s Reliance Group, stated during a face-to-face meeting with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang that India is actively constructing its own AI infrastructure—and confirmed that Reliance’s AI data centers would deploy NVIDIA’s Blackwell chips. Indeed, India’s AI industry holds immense, untapped potential. India is currently the world’s most populous country—making it a massive ‘cake’ for Meta to slice. India hosts approximately 375 million Facebook users, 363 million Instagram users, and 536 million WhatsApp users—all three platforms owned by Meta.

Reliance says Ambanis and Rubio discussed global energy, data centres in visit

Oct 21, 2026

Reliance Industries confirmed discussions between the Ambanis and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on global energy and data centres. Rubio encouraged increased Venezuelan crude refining at Reliance's Jamnagar complex.

reuters

2026-10-20

US Eyes India’s Reliance to Refine Venezuelan Oil

2026-10-21

Reliance says Ambanis and Rubio discussed global energy, data centres in visit

Reliance says Ambanis and Rubio discussed global energy, data centres in visit

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