Bharti Airtel and IBM have entered into a partnership to strengthen the recently launched Airtel Cloud, combining IBM’s AI and hybrid cloud technologies with Airtel’s data centre infrastructure. The collaboration is aimed at enabling enterprises, especially in regulated sectors such as banking, healthcare and government, to scale AI workloads more efficiently across hybrid environments.
Under the partnership, Airtel Cloud customers will be able to deploy IBM Power systems as-a-service, including the new AI-ready servers for mission-critical applications. The platform will also support key enterprise workloads such as IBM Power AIX, IBM i, Linux and SAP Cloud ERP.
Gopal Vittal, vice chairman and managing director of Bharti Airtel, said the partnership enhances Airtel Cloud’s capability to address industry-specific migration needs.
“Today, with the IBM partnership, we are adding substantial capabilities to our Cloud platform to address the unique needs of several industries that require migration from IBM Power Systems and allow for AI readiness. We will, together, also establish two new multizone regions in Mumbai and Chennai soon,” Vittal said.
“Enterprises today need to balance modernisation with the growing regulated technology and AI requirements. Through our partnership with Bharti Airtel, clients across India can leverage IBM’s innovative cloud offerings designed for workloads that address their strategic business priorities.
Together, we will help clients drive true transformation in the era of AI,” Rob Thomas, senior vice president and chief commercial officer of IBM, said.
With solutions like IBM’s watsonx and Red Hat OpenShift AI software stack, enterprises will be able to run AI inference across hybrid environments. IBM’s automation and hybrid cloud portfolio will also enable future innovation in AI and quantum computing.
Airtel said its multizone regions will bolster resilience, ensure data residency compliance, and keep mission-critical workloads running seamlessly. The partnership marks another step in Airtel’s push to position itself as a major player in India’s cloud and AI ecosystem.