• Reliance’s Jio Platforms is developing a broad range of 5G/6G digital network technologies
• It’s latest is JioBrain, an AI platform for telco and enterprise networks that gives Jio Platforms its generative AI (GenAI) pitch
• It’s designed to add machine learning capabilities to networks without a need for a massive IT transformation process

India’s Jio Platforms, the Reliance Industries division responsible for the conglomerate’s digital activities including the country’s largest telco, Reliance Jio, has announced the launch of JioBrain, an AI platform that is the product of two years of research and development (R&D) by hundreds of engineers and offers generative AI (GenAI) features on an “as-a-service” basis. 

Unveiling the development in a LinkedIn post this week, Jio Platforms senior VP Aayush Bhatnagar noted that the platform, which he described as a “significant milestone and addition to our 5G/6G product line,” integrates machine learning (ML) capabilities into a telco network, enterprise network or “any industry-specific IT environment” without the need for any network or IT transformation process. The platform has been designed to be a “plug-in architecture” that supports “all standard data sources, data formats and protocols” and enables users to “integrate their own datasets, information or files using an intuitive user interface”.  

JioBrain comes with more than 500 representational state transfer (REST) application programming interfaces (APIs) and data APIs for the development of specific machine language (ML)-enabled services and offers customised enterprise and large-scale large language model (LLM) capabilities, as well as advanced AI features for images, videos, text, documents, speech and in-built AI algorithms, “as a service”. 

Among the applications on offer are LLM-as-a-service, speech-to-speech/text translation, text-to-speech translation and text/image-to-video generation, code generation-as-a-service, code debugging as a service and ‘bring your own model’-as-a-service. “JioBrain supports new applications that can leverage the platform and its APIs to develop specific business logic and innovative use cases,” the company noted in a set of slides about JioBrain.   

It is a “domain and vertical agnostic platform”, according to Jio Platforms, and that includes being agnostic of any graphics processing unit (GPU) provider, so it’s not limited to running only on Nvidia’s technology (though that is the dominant hardware platform currently). In addition, it can run on any centralised or edge cloud, according to the company.

Jio Platforms plans to use its new AI technology, which is already integrated with Jio Platform’s network automation platform, to “help create new 5G services, transform enterprises [and] optimise networks,” noted Bhatnagar. Looking ahead, JioBrain will “set the stage for 6G development… where ML is a key capability,” he added.

With JioBrain now announced, Jio Platforms is looking to “collaborate with like-minded AI/ML researchers to create value, and scale the JioBrain innovation ecosystem,” added the SVP.  

Might that stretch to the Global Telco AI Alliance, a union formed last year by Deutsche Telekom (DT), e&, Singtel and SK Telecom (SKT) to “accelerate AI transformation of the existing telco business and create new business opportunities with AI services”? The members of that group have pledged to contribute their respective technologies and capabilities to the development of a Telco AI Platform, which will act as “the core foundation for new AI services, including those designed to improve the existing telco services” – see CSP giants form Global Telco AI Alliance.

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV