Mukesh Ambani's Jio opens cloud PC service to all of India

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio is opening its cloud PC service, JioPC, to any internet user in India, positioning it as a way to turn aging computers into AI-ready machines without hardware upgrades. The service, originally launched in July 2025 for Jio’s own broadband subscribers, is now available as a stand-alone subscription to anyone with an internet connection, regardless of their telecom or broadband provider.

JioPC streams a virtual PC from Jio’s cloud to an existing computer, with plans offering up to eight virtual CPUs, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. Jio says the service can give computers as old as eight years access to the computing power needed for modern AI applications. Plans start at ₹1,000 (about $11) for two months, while a 12-month subscription costs ₹4,000 (around $42) for 8GB of RAM and 500GB of storage, or ₹5,000 (about $53) for the 16GB and 1TB configuration.

The move comes amid widening PC replacement cycles in India, which had more than 65 million PCs in use in 2025 — about 34 million consumer and 31 million commercial machines — according to IDC estimates, which expect the installed base to approach 69 million by the end of 2026. Consumers and small businesses in India typically replace PCs every five to six years, up from four to five years in 2022, IDC senior market analyst Bharath Shenoy told TechCrunch; enterprise replacement cycles have stretched to about four years, up from three previously.

Prabhu Ram, vice president of the industry research group at Gurugram-based CyberMedia Research, said the move could create a market where consumers pay for computing capability rather than repeatedly spending on hardware upgrades. “Jio is broadening its value proposition by opening JioPC to non-Jio users, while also challenging the traditional hardware upgrade cycle,” Ram told TechCrunch. He doesn’t expect the model to replace conventional PCs, but said it could create a parallel, price-sensitive tier for households and students “for whom buying a new AI-capable PC was never really on the table to begin with.”

Jio still faces hurdles: Indians have traditionally preferred owning their hardware, Shenoy said, and JioPC requires a stable internet connection, which could be a challenge in the smaller cities and towns where affordable computing has the most room to grow. There’s also competition from refurbished PCs, which let consumers own inexpensive hardware without depending on connectivity. Notably, Jio hasn’t disclosed dedicated AI accelerators in JioPC’s specifications — a feature that typically defines the new generation of AI PCs.

Why it matters

The bet — whether Indians will come to see cloud computing as a daily utility rather than an occasional workaround, as Ram put it — will determine whether subscription-based computing can break into a market that has historically preferred owning hardware outright.