Gautam Adani said they will invest in expanding the network of data centres, building AI-ML and industrial cloud capabilities, along with rolling out 5G services and launching B2C apps. “All of these are the big ticket, independent yet mutually connected digital opportunities, that are backed by our adjacency in the energy business,” he said.

The Gujarat-based energy-to-consumer goods conglomerate surprised industry incumbents when it took part in 5G auctions in 2022. While Adani has not purchased spectrum across all 5G bands and thus cannot provide consumer telephony, the conglomerate parted with Rs 2.12 billion to buy 400MHz spectrum in the mm-wave band. Adani is gunning to provide private network services to enterprises, including its own.

However, telecom operator Bharti Airtel beat Adani to the punch, bagging the first private 5G network deal with Mahindra Group late last year. Reliance Jio has also indicated that private 5G will be a key avenue for monetisation for the operator in the future.

Other entities, such as IT major TCS, could also participate in the private network market. They are awaiting spectrum assignment rules from the DoT and TRAI, who are still deliberating the spectrum bands, which will be given to enterprises for private network use through administrative allocation.