Zscaler, Inc., in partnership with Bharti Airtel have announced the launch of the artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber threat research centre, India. This digital initiative is dedicated to advancing national cyber resilience, protecting sectors, industries and assets that are essential to India’s economic and national security, such as telecommunications, banking, and energy, as well as digital users, and accelerating trusted AI adoption across India’s rapidly expanding digital ecosystem.
The research centre will serve as an expansion of Zscaler’s operations into a national platform for collaboration between the private sector, public sector, academia and the government. The centre is designed In India, For India, with the goal of strengthening the nation’s cyber defenses and building a future-ready talent pipeline to support India’s progress toward Viksit Bharat and a peaceful, secure, and digitally self-reliant future.
The objectives of the AI and cyber threat research centre – India are anchored in four strategic pillars:
- Protect: Deliver real-time, actionable intelligence to strengthen India’s national cyber resilience and digital-first businesses.
- Remediate: Partner directly with government agencies to neutralise and prevent cyber-attacks.
- Facilitate: Drive the adoption of modern security frameworks, specifically focusing on AI-driven defenses and zero trust architecture.
- Build: Strengthen the cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialised AI and zero trust certifications to bridge the national skills gap.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine the former’s global intelligence with the latter’s local operational reach to create a stronger, faster research-to-response loop for India. Zscaler will deploy a specialised threat research team focused on India. This team will leverage the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform, to extract threat intelligence to secure India’s public and private sectors. Airtel will contribute deep visibility into internet of thing and mobile traffic, collaborating with Zscaler to monitor networks and develop new solutions, enabling faster identification of suspicious activity and more effective coordination with ecosystem stakeholders.
Looking ahead, additional members from India’s critical public and private sectors will be invited to join the centre to expand collaboration and strengthen cyber resilience across India.
Commenting on the partnership, executive vice-chairman, Airtel, said, “At Airtel, our commitment has been to safeguard our customers and the nation’s digital fabric. This partnership with Zscaler marks a significant extension of this commitment that will combine the power of our AI capabilities and deep scale for cybersecurity research to protect the country’s expanding digital ecosystem. We will focus on addressing challenges unique to our market to build a safer, more resilient digital India where every citizen and enterprise can connect and thrive with confidence. Our research-backed preventive mechanism will also encourage peaceful and secure engagements on digital platforms.
Meanwhile, chief executive officer, chairman, and founder, Zscaler, said, “India is building digital systems at an unmatched population scale. You cannot secure this level of ambition with legacy firewalls and virtual private networks that were never designed for a hyper-connected world. It demands a modern zero trust architecture that is secure-by-design. With the AI and cyber threat research centre – India, we will bring the full power of the world’s largest security cloud to protect the nation’s public and private sectors. By combining actionable intelligence from over 500 billion daily transactions with local expertise, we are not just building readiness; we are empowering a new generation of defenders to stay ahead of the adversary.”
