Airtel to offer cloud and Gen-AI solutions with Google Cloud in India

Bharti Airtel on Monday announced a long-term collaboration with Google Cloud to deliver cloud solutions to Indian businesses. Airtel will also leverage Google Cloud’s generative artificial intelligence capabilities to transform its customer experiences and interactions across mobile, broadband, and digital television, the telecom operator said in a release.

These capabilities will be extended to the telecommunications company's business-to-business customers in India and globally.

The partnership aims to offer a suite of cutting-edge cloud solutions from Google Cloud to fast-track cloud adoption and modernisation for Airtel’s customers. Additionally, Airtel will provide a suite of cloud-managed services to its customer base of more than 2,000 large enterprises and one million emerging businesses.

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.

Artificial Intelligence Push

Both companies will also jointly develop artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) solutions that Airtel will train on its large data set. These solutions will cover technologies in location, voice, and market analytics, the company said.

Geospatial analytics will focus on advanced location intelligence for trend-spotting, predictive capabilities, market assessment, site selection, risk management, and asset tracking.

Voice analytics solutions will focus on superior conversational applications trained across languages, while marketing technology solutions will forecast consumer behaviour, and streamline content creation with high-precision contextual ads at reduced costs.

"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 generative artificial intelligence in the country and unlock its potential to solve problems,” Gopal Vittal, managing director and chief executive officer, Bharti Airtel, said.

To power its cloud-based solutions business, Airtel has set up a managed services centre in Pune with over 300 experts who are being extensively trained to champion Google Cloud services and develop world-class tech solutions.

The strategic collaboration with Airtel marks a significant milestone towards its commitment to accelerate cloud and artificial intelligence adoption in India, Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of Google Cloud, said.