India's Airtel partners with Google Cloud to accelerate cloud adoption and deploy generative AI solutions

Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel today announced a long-term partnership with Google Cloud to deliver cloud solutions to Indian businesses. 

Airtel said the strategic collaboration will offer a suite of cutting-edge cloud solutions from Google Cloud to fast-track cloud adoption and modernisation for Airtel's customers.

In addition, Airtel will provide a suite of cloud-managed services to its customer base of over 2,000 large enterprises and one million emerging businesses.

Targeting large Indian public cloud services market 

Through this partnership, the two companies are targeting the large and growing Indian public cloud services market, which is expected to reach $17.8 billion by 2027, according to IDC.

Both companies will bring together their unique connectivity and AI technology strengths to develop industry-leading AI/ML solutions that Airtel will train on its large data set. 

Airtel said these solutions will include geospatial analytics solutions with advanced location intelligence for trend-spotting, predictive capabilities, market assessment, site selection, risk management, and asset tracking; voice analytics solutions for superior conversational applications trained across languages; and marketing technology solutions to forecast consumer behaviour, perform tailored audience segmentations, and streamline content creation with high-precision contextual ads at reduced costs.

Establishment of a managed services centre in Pune

In addition to these offerings, Airtel has developed an end-to-end IoT solution designed for the utility sector that combines connectivity, Google Cloud services, and application software under one offering, enabling seamless, hassle-free, and faster deployment.

To power its cloud-based solutions business, Airtel has set up a managed services centre in Pune with 300+ experts trained to champion Google Cloud services and develop world-class tech solutions, the company said in a release.

Leadership comments

Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO of Bharti Airtel, said: “As India accelerates its digital transformation, cutting-edge cloud and AI solutions will be at the heart and centre of this change. We are happy to partner with Google Cloud and jointly address this market opportunity with secure and scalable Cloud solutions for government, enterprises, and emerging businesses. Together, we will also accelerate the deployment of gen AI in the country and unlock its potential to solve problems.”

Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud, added: “Our strategic collaboration with Airtel marks a significant milestone towards our commitment to accelerate cloud and AI adoption in India. Through this partnership, we aim to explore and build transformative solutions that can enhance Airtel’s customer experiences.”

Leveraging Google Cloud’s gen AI capabilities

Airtel will also leverage Google Cloud’s gen AI capabilities to transform its customer experiences and interactions across its offerings of mobile, broadband, and digital TV, and to streamline its internal processes and operations. The company will also extend these capabilities to its B2B customers in India and globally, it said.