Corporate Houses 2.0 – Reliance, Tata and Adani rebuilding their empires around clean energy and AI.
- $210bn committed by Reliance & Adani (toward AI infrastructure)
- 30 GW Khavda renewable complex (roughly 35% commissioned)
- $365bn+ Tata’s listed market cap (across 26 companies)
- 70%+ of India’s EV market (held by Tata Motors)
For most of the twentieth century, understanding power in India meant looking at who controlled steel, textiles and refining. The same three houses are still central. What is worth controlling has changed.
Reliance is building a five-thousand-acre green energy complex to feed its own AI compute. Adani has committed $100bn to renewable-powered data centres. Between them, roughly $210bn aimed at one idea: own the electrons and the intelligence running on them.
Tata is the counter-case: over seventy percent of India’s EV market, but stretched across too many long-gestation bets and under extended board review for much of 2026.
The signal to watch: Commissioned gigawatts, not announced billions. Khavda is roughly 35% built.
Where we would take your group
- A renewable complex under construction. Commissioned gigawatts, not announced billions.
- A port and logistics park. The cash-generating base the new bets are financed from.
- A corporate governance scholar. Why family ownership and strategy are one story here.
Questions for the debrief
- Two houses are vertically integrating energy and compute; one is stretched across many long-gestation businesses. Which structure would you rather own in 2035, and why?
- TCS cut its largest-ever number of roles while India’s tech workforce grew to ~5.9m. What is actually happening to the work?
- In India, corporate strategy and family governance are rarely separable. How does that change how you read a capital allocation decision?
