Airtel Business, the B2B arm of Bharti Airtel, in collaboration with Google, is paving the way for what the companies call "India’s first AI-enabled sovereign cloud solution." Last year in May, Airtel and Google entered into a long-term strategic collaboration to accelerate cloud adoption and deploy Generative AI solutions in India. This comes at a time when the two companies are targeting the growing Indian public cloud services market, which is expected to reach USD 17.8 billion by 2027, according to IDC.
Also Read: Airtel, Google Cloud Partner to Accelerate Cloud Adoption, Deploy Generative AI Solutions
Roundtable Hosted by Airtel and Google Cloud
According to Airtel Business, government organisations are increasingly adopting cloud technologies to enhance data security, ensure compliance, and maintain operational independence. This shift was the focus of a recent roundtable hosted by Airtel Business in partnership with Google Cloud and powered by ObserveNow, where leaders from various government bodies discussed how cloud solutions can unlock value while addressing data security and sovereignty concerns.
The discussion explored the diverse needs of customers, including flexibility, scalability, and alignment with the 'Make in India' mandates.
At the event, the Head of Customer Engineering, Public Sector, and Education for Google Cloud India shared how Airtel Business's partnership with Google Cloud is paving the way for India's first AI-enabled sovereign cloud solution. This partnership, according to Airtel Business, combines hyper-scale capabilities with robust compliance, advanced technologies like AI, and data sovereignty—all tailored specifically to handle mission-critical data for government organisations.
What is an AI-enabled sovereign cloud solution?
An AI-enabled sovereign cloud solution is a specialised cloud computing environment that incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities while adhering to strict data sovereignty, privacy, and security requirements specific to a region or country.
Also Read: Airtel Business: Key B2B Advancements and Innovations in 2024
Airtel Own Cloud Solution
According to the CEO, Airtel's 'Own Cloud' solution, which will be more economical than those currently available in the market, will be launched in the next few months. Airtel has already been working on it, and the company is expected to go live with its solution soon.
Commenting on the development during the Q2FY25 earnings call, Gopal Vittal of Bharti Airtel said, "We have made an investment to develop our own cloud. We are one of the largest Cloud players for our own private needs. We have now signed off an investment, which is underway, which we will take to market in the next few months where we will be able to solve the problems of workloads that may not need such elastic requirements as the public cloud offers but to do it in a way that is more economical. I think we will have a full proposition around the cloud."
Leverage Airtel's Data for Training
Under the partnership, Airtel and Google will combine their strengths in connectivity and AI technology to develop AI/ML solutions, which Airtel will train on its large dataset. Once the solution is ready, Airtel will have a full-scale, own-cloud solution, cost-optimized and customized as per its needs.
