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The deal aims to make cloud-based solutions more accessible in India
Bharti Airtel and Google Cloud have announced a strategic collaboration to offer advanced cloud solutions to businesses in India.
The deal will bring new cloud solutions from Google Cloud to Airtel customers, including 2,000 large enterprises and one million emerging businesses.
The Indian public cloud services market is growing rapidly, expected to be worth $17.8 billion by 2027, according to IDC. Airtel itself has over 570 million customers in 17 countries across South Asia and Africa, roughly 375 million of which are in India.
As part of the deal, the two companies will combine their expertise to develop AI and machine learning solutions, leveraging Airtel’s large pool of telecoms data. Such solutions will include:
– Geospatial analytics solutions to predict market trends, site selection, risk management, and asset tracking;
– Voice analytics solutions for conversational applications trained across different languages;
– and marketing technology solutions to predict customer behavior and streamline content creation, such as contextualised advertisements.
Additionally, Airtel has introduced an end-to-end IoT solution targeting the utility sector, integrating connectivity, Google Cloud services, and application software for easy deployment.
To support its cloud-based solutions, Airtel has established a managed services center in Pune, in West India, with over 300 employees trained to use Google Cloud services and to develop new tech solutions.
“As India accelerates its digital transformation, cutting-edge cloud and AI solutions will be at the heart and center of this change,” said Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO of Bharti Airtel said in a joint press release.
“Our strategic collaboration with Airtel marks a significant milestone towards our commitment to accelerate cloud and AI adoption in India,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud.
“Through this partnership, we aim to explore and build transformative solutions that can enhance Airtel’s customer experiences,” he continued.
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