Bharti Airtel and Google Cloud have entered a long-term collaboration to deliver cloud solutions to Indian businesses. 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 more than 2,000 large enterprises and one million emerging businesses. Through this collaboration, the two companies are targeting large and growing Indian public cloud services market, which, according to International Data Corporation, is expected to reach $17.8 billion by 2027.
The two companies will bring together their unique strengths of connectivity and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to develop industry-leading AI/ machine learning (ML) solutions that Airtel will train on its large data set. These unique solutions will drive greater value to Airtel’s customers and 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 advertisements at reduced costs.
In addition to these offerings, Airtel has developed an end-to-end internet of things (IoT) solution designed for 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 who are being extensively trained to champion Google Cloud services and develop world-class tech solutions.
Commenting on the collaboration, Gopal Vittal, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO), 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 generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the country and unlock its potential to solve problems.”
Meanwhile, Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud, said, “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.”
Airtel will also leverage Google Cloud’s GenAI 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. Airtel will also extend these capabilities to its business to business (B2B) customers in India and globally.
