Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) has confirmed its partnership with Sirius, a subsidiary of International Holding Company (IHC) based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to invest in emerging technologies to improve India’s digital economy.
The partnership creates a new joint venture (JV) called Sirius Digitech International to lead its efforts in India. The Sirius JV, based in Abu Dhabi, will explore opportunities in blockchain, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT).
The new investment entity will focus on the sectors of finance, health, and environmental sustainability projects. Projects working with emerging technologies across sectors are likely to receive a capital injection from the joint venture, although exact details are not publicly available.
Sources say the company will use various digital platforms to tap into India’s fast-growing digital economy, according to reports. While the company may come up with new projects from scratch, analysts say the ideal route for a joint venture would be to invest in existing early stage projects in India that are built using revolutionary emerging technology.
“The Sirius JV will leverage the global digital transformation expertise of Sirius and Adani’s strategic visionaries to focus on driving the $175 billion opportunity in digitization of the Indian economy,” the statement said. “This digital opportunity is rapidly developing into a $1 trillion market by 2030.”
Executives at both Adani and Sirius are optimistic about the prospects of the joint venture, banking on the combination of their strengths. The joint statement hinted at the deployment of sensor technologies with artificial intelligence in key industries for “real-time decision making” while examining opportunities arising from integrating blockchain into industrial applications.
Adani will own 49% of the joint venture, while Sirius will have a majority stake of 51%, with Indian regulators required to give final approval before work begins.
India’s emerging technology landscape
With over 1.4 billion people, India is touted as the next frontier for emerging technologies. Web 3 and AI startups have set up shop in India despite the opaque nature of harsh government regulations and policies.
India’s banking regulator has proposed AI-powered conversational payments, but misuse of generative AI has prompted officials to harden their stance on the technology. Blockchain, on the other hand, has recorded increasing use cases in India, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman predicting an adoption rate of up to 46% before the end of the decade.
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