Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator, announced a long-term partnership with Google Cloud to develop and deliver cloud and generative AI products to Indian businesses.
This collaboration aims to leverage Airtel’s extensive customer base, including 2,000 large enterprises and a million emerging businesses. The companies plan to offer AI solutions, including generative AI, which Airtel will train using its vast datasets.
Airtel and Google Cloud will provide businesses with products like geospatial analytics, location intelligence, predictive capabilities, market assessment, site selection, risk management, and asset tracking. Additionally, they will offer voice analytics for conversational applications across various languages and marketing technology to forecast consumer behavior, perform audience segmentations, and streamline content creation with contextual ads. Airtel has established a managed service center in Pune, staffed by over 300 experts to provide support.
Major tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are increasingly targeting the telecommunications industry to capitalize on the vast amounts of data generated by billions of customers worldwide. These firms have signed deals with telecom operators globally, including in the U.S. and U.K., and are aggressively selling their generative AI offerings to businesses worldwide.
Google is already an investor in Airtel, having committed up to $1 billion in the Indian carrier in 2022. The search giant has also backed Jio Platforms, which operates India’s largest carrier and maintains a similar partnership with Microsoft to cross-sell Office 365 and Azure to local businesses.
Google and Airtel did not disclose the financial terms of the deal. Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian described the partnership as “a significant milestone” toward accelerating cloud and AI adoption in India.
