The Chief Executive Officer of Jio Platforms Limited, part of the Reliance Group, on Tuesday outlined an ambitious vision for the telecom sector in what he described as the dawn of an “Intelligence Era,” driven by artificial intelligence and generative AI technologies. Addressing an industry gathering, Mathew Oommen said the world is undergoing a generational transformation that goes far beyond the shift from industrialisation to the internet age. Artificial intelligence, he argued, is not merely an upgrade cycle but a fundamental reset of economic and business models.
Jio Platforms will be among the first scalable token service providers globally in the age of artificial intelligence, said the top executive of the telecom operator on Tuesday.
“The telecom currency is going to be rapidly changing from minutes to bytes to tokens. And we sincerely believe, at Jio, we will be one of the first scalable token services providers,” Mathew Oommen, group CEO at Jio Platforms (JPL), part of the Indian Reliance Group, said during a session on “Built for What’s Next” at the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026 in Barcelona, Spain.
Below is the full text of the keynote by Mathew Oommen, Group CEO, Jio Platforms, at Mobile World Congress (MWC), Barcelona.
Keynote Address
The Dawn of the Intelligence Era
Good evening and welcome to the new era of I would say the greatest transformation of our lifetime. If I or anyone else we know and they say the real impact of this new era is known, let’s call the new era the Intelligence Era or the I-Generation Era, I would say it is a little premature and the good thing is change is happening for sure and happening very fast.
Dr. Alexander Graham Bell was born today. He is a Scottish-Canadian-American inventor and I would say he is great gentleman, He is a great human being, he is a great scientist, and we need more of him in this age as AI and Gen AI and whatever is to come next is going to be transforming us.
And I have to say that I am extremely honoured and privileged to be here today and thank you very much for having me. Our Honourable Minister Mr. Jyotiraditya Scindia talked about the profound impact of India and the world, specially of the telecom industry. We need actually people like him to push us to the next level.
By the way, when I was walking up to the stage, a young lady told me, “You don’t have teleprompter messaging.” I said, “Yes, I don’t have a teleprompter.” Maybe that’s good news; maybe that’s bad news.
And when you think about Seedance 2.0, the impact of Kungfu robots from unitree or the chips or the frontier models from US. Clearly the world is changing, and it is imperative to define, redefine and the entire telecom and the digital industry.
AI Is Not an Upgrade Cycle, But a Reset
When you look at the investment that is happening in the world, you will see that this year alone, over USD 3 trillion is going to be put in AI and of that about USD 810 billion is just for a few of the hyperscalers. Clearly it is from the GDP perspective and completely different from the industrial to the internet era. This is clearly a generational transformation and there industrial if you look at it mechanized production internet is what we actually live in, the internet and cloud as we evolve into the AI era. By the way AI era is not an upgrade cycle. It is completely resetting the economic and business equation. Because we are going to be creating a new business of trillions of dollars and that to me is the biggest opportunity.
Now when you look at the intelligence economy, couple of things is going to change. The AI infrastructure, the telecom infrastructure is going to change. The Intelligent endpoints is going to be a key pillar. We are going to talk about how the functional dismantling of the workforces and how AI is getting embedded into all the critical economic and national grids and the unprecedented scale of the disruption of businesses and the business models.
AI Command Architectural Framework
Now, this is not by the way an OSI layer of unlearning and we are learning some new model. It is about building a trusted intelligence infrastructure. And that infrastructure to simplistic way I am calling it the AI Command Architectural Framework and that to me is the fundamental building block of the seven-layer intelligence architecture that I am referring to that the AI and telecom infrastructure we will be building.
And by the way this is not going to be built by set of tools that is kind of broken and fragmented, but from an unified, integrated architecture. This is about integrating workflows and delivering outcomes.
This is what I call as the command architecture framework. Now just like the AI and the infrastructure transformation, the endpoints are going to be having transformation. Whether it is my clickers to my pens to my pendants to my pins to the glasses or the drones or my famous Kungfu robots. They are all the Interfaces going to disappear and all connected systems is going to think, coordinate, and act in real time.
Now I talked about dismantling. It is very important for us to not look at the talent and workforce in the people as just some automation or doing things faster and quicker. And it is not about reskilling, it is a complete reset, and it is about leveraging the full capability and not incrementalisation of the intelligence opportunity.
Telecom as the Foundation of the Intelligence Economy
Now when you think about the intelligence economy there are certain building blocks in establishing the leadership. Technology leadership is now economic leadership. How many people get called into being on the daises that are called technology heavyweights. And economic leadership is national leadership and to get to that national leadership, you will have to embed intelligence into the energy sector, the transportation, the finance the national defence and the security sector. For all of the sectors, these critical and economic vibrant sectors, the foundational layer is going to be the telecom layer because when you build infrastructure at scale, you will build intelligence at scale.
Now, our planet, our world that’s our home, and we are its guardians of the home and the planet. And there is the responsibility in each one of us in making sure that we manage those critical resources the right way. Now we know the population is growing to 10 billion, we know there is a concern in terms of water, we know there is a concern in terms of the productivity of food, we know energy concern but I also believe AI used responsibly and together with critical resources is going to be humanity’s most impactful tool for continued balancing between earth, our planet and the next generational transformation.
Now, the telecom industry of yesterday and the telecom industry of tomorrow is definitely not the same and let me say some of the operators will embrace and be successful others will struggle.
From Connectivity Pipe to Token Generator
What I mean by that the telecom currency is going to be rapidly changing from minutes to bytes to tokens. And we sincerely believe at Jio, we will be one of the first scalable token services provider. And why is that. We made voice free in India. You heard that minister earlier talked about 9 cents a GB, we delivered as Jio with now over 525 million subscribers. 9 cents a GB and we are determined to deliver the lowest cost of dollar per token per watt. Let me reiterate, we do not want to be the LTP and we will talk about LTP. That acronym that one thing about telecom guys we love it. And that is being the largest token pipe, beyond being the connectivity pipe. Do we want to be the largest token pipe. I don’t think so. Because the AI is reckoning is going to fundamentally change Jio networks and your devices. Because they are not going to be the same.
Intelligence Grid
"There are few guys in the industry who is making 90% percent of the value. But we (telcos) have certain levers. But the question is: can we become the fabric of that AI infrastructure and become the owner of the tokenomics?" Oommen asked. And that is the opportunity, so that we can become, the largest token generator opportunity and not just be another token pipe.
Because this era is going to be a very critically era. Why is that? A lot of generations of our time…Look at our era and look at it a multi-generational shift that is happening. And this shift is not just about happening in telecom, it’s in every fabric of the world, the fabric our economy, the fabric of geopolitical balances of our society. For telecom, this is a great opportunity. Whether you call it the tokens, whether you call it the four pillars of transformation, that I talked about or I am calling this the i-grid. The Intelligence Grid that we will own.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would say, as I was walking to the floor yesterday, an analyst came up to me and said are you apprehensive of the industry and the big transformation in AI. "Now I can tell you it is in some minds it could a big anxiety, but I also believe it is the biggest opportunity, and the outcomes is going to be the determined by the choices we make," he concluded.
