Bharti Airtel has announced a strategic partnership with IBM to enhance its Airtel Cloud platform, aiming to deliver advanced cloud and AI capabilities to enterprises in regulated sectors such as banking, healthcare, and government. The collaboration will integrate Airtel Cloud’s secure and resilient infrastructure with IBM’s AI-ready technologies, including the latest IBM Power11 servers and IBM watsonx for AI inferencing.
Through the partnership, Airtel Cloud customers can deploy IBM Power systems as-a-Service, supporting critical workloads across IBM Power AIX, IBM i, Linux, and SAP Cloud ERP. Enterprises will also gain access to IBM’s hybrid cloud solutions, enabling seamless interoperability across on-premise, cloud, multi-cloud, and edge environments, thereby accelerating digital transformation and AI adoption. Airtel will expand its availability zones in India from four to ten and establish two new Multi-Zone Regions in Mumbai and Chennai, ensuring high data residency and operational resilience. Gopal Vittal, Airtel MD & Vice Chairman, emphasized that the partnership sets new benchmarks in security, compliance, and AI readiness for Indian enterprises.
In Kolkata, local enterprises are expected to benefit significantly from the enhanced Airtel Cloud services, especially in sectors such as finance, healthcare, and logistics. The increased cloud capacity and AI capabilities will support regional businesses in modernizing operations, improving efficiency, and ensuring data security in line with regulatory requirements. Rob Thomas, IBM SVP, highlighted that the collaboration will enable clients to leverage IBM’s enterprise-grade cloud solutions to meet strategic business priorities and accelerate AI-driven productivity across India.