India's Bharti Airtel launches cloud, AI services for businesses, telcos

(Reuters) -Bharti Airtel’s digital unit Xtelify on Monday announced a new cloud platform and AI-powered software offerings for businesses and telecom operators, alongside partnerships with Singtel, Globe Telecom and Airtel Africa.

 

Airtel Cloud offers a range of services including, infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service with secure migration and scaling, the company said in a statement.

 

The new AI-powered software platform for telcom operators features a data engine, workforce tools and customer engagement modules to improve service and lift average revenue per user (ARPU) - a key metric for the sector, India’s No. 2 telecom operator added.

 

As part of the plan, Airtel has partnered with Singtel, Globe Telecom and Airtel Africa to deploy the platform, enabling applications such as AI-driven workforce optimisation, omni-channel customer service and real-time customer engagement.

 

India has been stepping up efforts to pilot local cloud data storage. The country’s cloud services market was estimated at $8.3 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $24.2 billion by 2028, according to a 2024 report by International Data Corporation. The market is so far largely dominated by foreign firms.

 

Last month, Airtel announced a partnership with AI-powered search engine Perplexity, offering a 12-month free subscription to its 360 million customers.

 

($1 = 87.5700 Indian rupees)

 

 (Reporting by Aleef Jahan, Manvi Pant, Kashish Tandon and Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Sonia Cheema)