India has lagged behind in the first and second industrial revolutions, caught up the pace with the third one but the fourth is “upon us”, said Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, and MD and Chairman of India’s biggest conglomerate Reliance Industries.
“…we need to prepare ourselves for a period of information and digital abundance. All Indians will have access to quantum computing on the cloud, and access to all the information on the planet. I am proud to say that, instead of a digital divide, India today is digitally united,” Ambani said at an event.
Pressing the need to tap the full potential of the fourth industrial revolution of algorithms, big data, artificial intelligence, the leading businessman said, “I can say with full confidence that India has a chance of not just participating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but also leading it.” Ambani, once again, reiterated that by using the new-age disruptions, India will become one of the three richest countries in the world.
“India’s digital transformation is unmatched and unprecedented.” RIL boss, who also owns one of the key telco players, Jio, said, adding, mobile computing as a catalyst is driving massive data consumption — and this has given “young Indians a fertile ground for disruptive ideas”.
Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke at length about the fourth industrial revolution. “India’s contribution towards the fourth industrial revolution will be one that will leave the world stunned”, the prime minister had said.
Remembering old days of running a business, Ambani explained how India of the 90s with a GDP $350 billion is different from the India of 2018 with a GDP of 3 trillion. I was busy in the world of energy and atoms, he said, not bits and bytes.
“It was an altogether different world then… the all-pervasive impact of mobile technologies was, at best, science-fiction,” he added.