Bharti Airtel‘s cloud arm is stepping up its push into the enterprise and government market, with the company in active discussions with some of the country’s largest banks, insurers and public sector institutions to migrate critical workloads onto its sovereign cloud platform.
“The potential pipeline is very active, and conversations are underway with leading banks, insurers, digital-native companies and key government and public sector institutions in India,” Pradipt Kapoor, chief digital and information officer at Bharti Airtel and CEO of Xtelify, told FE.
Since its launch, Airtel Cloud has engaged with more than 500 customers across industries, Kapoor said. The discussions span sovereign cloud infrastructure, AI-ready computing, secure data platforms, network and customer analytics, industry-specific applications and modernisation of digital infrastructure.
The push comes as enterprises and government institutions increasingly look to keep critical data and computing infrastructure within the country. Airtel Cloud has secured MeitY empanelment, along with ISO and SOC certifications, helping it meet requirements for government and public sector deployments. It is competing with Tata Communications, Yotta and other players targeting the emerging sovereign cloud market.
Airtel’s proposition, however, is built around more than keeping data within India. Kapoor said the company’s infrastructure is hosted and controlled in India, with the data plane, control plane and jurisdiction remaining within the country. The platform is anchored in Nxtra’s data centres and integrated with Airtel’s mobile, fixed-line and subsea connectivity as well as its cybersecurity capabilities.
This allows enterprises to host mission-critical applications in Airtel’s data centres, scale them through Airtel Cloud, secure them through its cybersecurity stack and connect users through its pan-India network. “The benefit is greater control, consistent security policies, better visibility, faster resolution of issues and lower operating complexity,” Kapoor said.
The cloud platform itself originated from Airtel’s internal infrastructure requirements rather than as a standalone commercial proposition. The telecom company manages more than 350 million consumers and over 600 million user touchpoints, requiring cloud-native platforms capable of operating at large scale.
Airtel’s internal use cases, including systems supporting its spam-detection network, provided an early test of the technology as well as its performance and economics before the capability was commercialised under Xtelify. The company is now seeking to extend that infrastructure to customers with similarly demanding requirements.
Kapoor said Xtelify plans to expand its AI-ready, high-performance cloud environments while retaining open architectures to reduce vendor dependence. The company also plans to invest in energy-efficient data centre infrastructure.
The broader ambition is to position Xtelify as part of the country’s strategic digital infrastructure as demand for AI computing, 5G applications and digital public infrastructure grows. “If India wants to be competitive in AI, 5G, and digital public infrastructure, it cannot afford to have its strategic systems running on infrastructure it does not fully control,” Kapoor said.