Airtel inks deal with Google Cloud to accelerate cloud adoption, deploy Generative AI solutions

Gopal Vittal

Bharti Airtel said it has entered into a long-term collaboration with Google Cloud to deliver cloud solutions to Indian businesses.

The strategic collaboration will offer a suite of cloud solutions from Google Cloud to fast-track cloud adoption and modernisation for Airtel’s customers.

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

“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," Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO, Bharti Airtel, said in a joint statement.

Through this collaboration, 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.

“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," Thomas Kurian, CEO, of Google Cloud, said.

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. Airtel will also extend these capabilities to its B2B customers in India and globally.

Both companies said they 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.

These 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 behavior, perform tailored audience segmentations, and streamline content creation with high-precision contextual ads at reduced costs.

Airtel said it has also 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 over 300 experts extensively trained to champion Google Cloud services and develop world-class tech solutions, per an official statement.