Reliance only Indian company among world's most valuable tech giants

Business Standard

2 days ago

Reliance Industries becomes the only Indian firm to break into the top 30 most valuable global tech companies, as a major report highlights AI's rapid rise and India's growing digital footprint
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries has become the only Indian company to feature in a global list of the 30 most valuable publicly traded technology firms, according to a detailed 340-page report titled 'Trends – Artificial Intelligence'. The report explores how AI is rapidly being adopted across the world and the transformative role it's playing across industries.
The list ranks global tech companies by market value. Unsurprisingly, American tech giants dominate the top spots- Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Tesla and Broadcom hold the first eight positions.
Taiwan's TSMC comes in at number nine, with China's Tencent right behind. Reliance, with a market capitalisation of $216 billion, has been placed 23rd.
"Over the past 30 years (1995–2025), just five companies remained on the top 30 most highly valued publicly traded global technology companies Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, IBM and AT&T," the report noted.
It also highlighted how Reliance now sits alongside big global names like Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla, Alibaba, Salesforce and China Mobile as a new entrant to the elite list.
"In 1995, the USA had 53 per cent (16 of 30) of the most valuable tech companies and 70 per cent (21 of 30) in 2025," it added.
Back in 1995, Japan accounted for 30 per cent (9 of 30) of the top companies but none of its firms will feature in 2025. Other countries like the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Malaysia had one company each on the list three decades ago but are now absent.
"In 2025, new geographic entrants include China with 3, Germany with 2, Taiwan with 1, Netherlands with 1, South Korea with 1 and India with 1," the report said.
Taiwan's sole entry, TSMC, is a global powerhouse in chip manufacturing. It produces 80–90 per cent of the world's most advanced semiconductors and 62 per cent of all semiconductors.
India also leads globally when it comes to mobile users of ChatGPT. It accounts for 13.5 per cent of the monthly active users of the AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI. This places India ahead of the USA (8.9 per cent), Indonesia (5.7 per cent), and Brazil (5.4 per cent), while Pakistan contributes 3 per cent.
When it comes to Chinese AI app DeepSeek, India holds 6.9 per cent of its active global users, trailing behind China (33.9 per cent) and Russia (9.2 per cent).
"Artificial intelligence is reshaping the modern landscape at breakneck speed. What began as research has scaled into emerging core infrastructure across industries, powering everything from customer support to software development, scientific discovery, education, and manufacturing," the report stated.
AI is moving fast, becoming more integrated into our daily work and touching more fields than ever before.
"Catalysing this growth is the global availability of easy-to-use multimodal AI tools (like ChatGPT) on pervasive mobile devices, augmented by a steep decline in inference costs and an explosion in model availability. Both closed and open-source tools are now widely accessible and increasingly capable, enabling solo developers, startups, and enterprises alike to experiment and deploy with minimal friction," it added.
Major tech firms are embedding AI more deeply into their products from smart assistants and copilots to intelligent agents that change how users interact with technology. Whether it's through AI built into SaaS platforms or smart features in consumer apps, the way we use digital tools is evolving rapidly.
On the infrastructure side, investment is rising sharply. Spending by cloud providers, chipmakers, and hyperscalers has reached new highs as they race to support real-time, high-volume AI tasks. This investment goes beyond chips, it includes new data centres, networks, and energy systems to meet the growing demand.
"Whether this level of capital expenditure persists remains to be seen, but as AI moves closer to the edge in vehicles, farms, labs, and homes, the distinction between digital and physical infrastructure continues to blur," the report concluded.