India's Bharti Airtel launches cloud, AI services for businesses, telcos
Airtel Cloud offers a range of services including, infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service with secure migration and scaling, the company said in a statement.
The new AI-powered software platform for telcom operators features a data engine, workforce tools and customer engagement modules to improve service and lift average revenue per user (ARPU) - a key metric for the sector, India's No. 2 telecom operator added.
As part of the plan, Airtel has partnered with Singtel (STEL.SI), opens new tab, Globe Telecom (GLO.PS), opens new tab and Airtel Africa (AAF.L), opens new tab to deploy the platform, enabling applications such as AI-driven workforce optimisation, omni-channel customer service and real-time customer engagement.
India has been stepping up efforts to pilot local cloud data storage. The country's cloud services market was estimated at $8.3 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $24.2 billion by 2028, according to a 2024, opens new tab report by International Data Corporation. The market is so far largely dominated by foreign firms.
Last month, Airtel announced a partnership with AI-powered search engine Perplexity, offering a 12-month free subscription to its 360 million customers.
($1 = 87.5700 Indian rupees)
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