Bharti Airtel Bets Big On Cloud, Takes On Jio, Google, AWS With Xtelify

Bharti Airtel Ltd. launched its telco-grade sovereign cloud services on Monday through its AI arm Xtelify, marking an aggressive push into India’s crowded enterprise cloud market.

With this move, Airtel joins the race to capture a significant market share in the cloud services space alongside big tech companies like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, all racing to serve India’s booming digital economy.

The company says Xtelify already bagged major contracts with Singtel and Globe Telecom, aiming to scale and capture a substantial chunk of the market through its current capacity by offering 250 petabytes of cloud storage to more businesses.

"With 250 petabytes of cloud storage and our Nxtra data centres, Xtelify will help us serve more customers and make Airtel a strong contender in the fast-growing cloud market," Gopal Vittal, managing director of Bharti Airtel, said.

Nxtra, which is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel and has a network of data centres across India, will also support Xtelify's growing business that will offer its customers telco-grade, AI-powered cloud services built in India. The company claims its cloud platform can handle 140 crore transactions per minute for Airtel’s own operations and will now be expanded to external clients.

"AI will sit at the heart of Xtelify’s operations as we scale this business, hire more talent and aim to make it a substantial revenue driver for Bharti Airtel in the coming years," Vittal said when asked about the transition and integration of AI growing increasingly among corporates.

Airtel plans to hire more for this business as it grows and is currently offering its cloud analyser services free to onboard more clients.

While Airtel has not set any revenue targets for Xtelify yet, the company hopes it will contribute a significant share to its earnings over the next decade, as it transforms from a pure telecom operator to a broader telecom solutions provider.

In an increasingly crowded market, Airtel’s bet is that its deep telecom network, data centre capacity and homegrown cloud will give it an edge against global giants and domestic rivals alike.