The three men who are turning India into an economic superpower. The country will overtake Germany and Japan by 2027

A quiet coastal town in the Indian state of Gujarat attracted more attention in March than Davos and Coachella. Billionaires and celebrities from all over the world have flown to Jamnagar, overflowing the capacity of the tiny airport with their private jets and charter flights. They all came to party with Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, one of three men who are playing a key role in turning India into an economic superpower, according to CNN.

The 67-year-old chairman of India’s most valuable private company, Reliance Industries, threw a lavish party ahead of his son’s wedding, attended by 1,200 guests from Silicon Valley, Bollywood and beyond. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Ivanka Trump were among the top celebrities who came.

The festivities spanned three days, during which stars such as singer Rihanna and magician David Blaine performed and captured the world’s attention, once again demonstrating Ambani’s growing global influence.

But Ambani wasn’t the only Indian billionaire who attended the party and is using his influence and wealth to transform the world’s most populous country.

Billionaire Gautam Adani, founder of Adani Group, was also invited. The infrastructure tycoon has shocked the world with its meteoric rise over the past decade. In 2022, he briefly stole Jeff Bezos’ second place on the list of the richest people in the world.

India is poised to become one of the biggest economic powers of the 21st century, which will attract many investors and manufacturers looking for an alternative to China.

Reliance Industries and Adani Group are large conglomerates worth a total of $400 billion with major businesses in various industrial sectors, from fossil fuels and renewable energy to media and technology.

Along with Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister seeking a third consecutive term as the country’s leader, the three men have a strong say in what India will look like in the coming decades.

“Billionaires Alley” and a skyscraper inhabited by a single family

Everyone in Mumbai knows who lives in Antilia – Ambani and his family’s personal skyscraper, which is said to have cost $2 billion and is equipped with a spa, three helipads and a 50-seat cinema hall. The 27-storey building is located on a street nicknamed “Billionaires’ Alley”.

This kind of power and influence has also been seen in other countries that have gone through rapid periods of industrialization. Both Ambani and Adani have often been compared by journalists to John D. Rockefeller, who became America’s first billionaire during the Gilded Age – a 30-year period from the end of the 19th century.

During those decades, American industrialists amassed impressive fortunes thanks to the rapid expansion of railroads, factories, and urban centers in the United States. Frick, Astor, Carnegie and Vanderbilt are other important names that transformed the country’s infrastructure.

In Asia, huge conglomerates run by wealthy families have dominated the South Korean economy for decades, and many of them, such as Samsung and Hyundai, have become global leaders in semiconductor and car manufacturing.

“India is in the middle of something that America and many other countries have already gone through. Britain in 1820, South Korea in the 60s and 70s and you could say China in 2000,” said James Crabtree, author of the book The Billionaire Rajabout India’s rich.

Adani and Ambani, the new Rockefellers

India’s GDP in 2023 was $3.7 trillion – it is the world’s fifth largest economy, climbing four places during Modi’s 10 years at the helm, overtaking even Britain. It had the highest economic growth of all the world’s major economies during the period 2014-2023.

Some analysts predict that India will become the world’s third largest economy in 2027, when it will be surpassed only by the US and China.

To boost economic growth, Modi’s government has embarked on a massive infrastructure transformation, allocating billions of dollars to build roads, ports, airports and railways. The government is heavily promoting digital connectivity, which can improve commerce and people’s daily lives.

Adani and Ambani have become key allies as the country moves through this technological revolution.

Reliance was founded by Ambani’s father Dhirubhai as a small textile trading firm in 1957. Over the next few decades, it grew into a colossal conglomerate that expanded into the energy, petrochemical and telecommunication sectors.

After his father’s death and a bitter power struggle with his younger brother, Ambani inherited the company’s main assets in oil and petrochemicals. He then spent billions building the company into a tech giant, and now plays a crucial role in media and retail.

Ambani’s ambition and rapid pace of development is matched only by Adani, who dropped out of university and now runs businesses in transport, energy, defense and aerospace.

A first-generation entrepreneur, Adani began his career in diamond trading before venturing into the commodity market in 1988, setting up what later became Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), a firm that “represents the core of all that India is trying to achieve,” according to US brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald.

Although both billionaires amassed much of their wealth from fossil fuels, they are now investing billions in clean energy.

Ambani and Adani are considered big supporters of Modi. The Indian Prime Minister’s connections with the richest people in India and the incredible rise of Adani have been criticized several times by the opposition parties in the country.

Despite corruption scandals and allegations of fraud, “Adani is too big to ignore, and for India, the country needs Adani as much as Adani needs the country,” according to a Cantor report.

Editor: Raul Nețoiu

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