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India’s biggest telecom rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are doubling down on artificial intelligence, cloud services, and data centres as they look to capture a slice of the country’s booming cloud and AI markets.According to PwC, AI and cloud are the biggest adjacencies for telcos to build revenue streams beyond connectivity.India’s cloud market is set to reach $58 billion by 2030 – from $15 billion currently – and AI could add $1.5 trillion to GDP by 2030, according to PwC.Together, they would unlock multi-billion-dollar opportunities for telcos, experts said.“AI will drive the next wave of digital transformation,” said Rajiv Ranjan, associate director, cloud and AI, at research firm IDC India. “Cloud (public or private) will support and operate AI. Connectivity and data centre infra are a major requirement for this. Telcos see this as a huge opportunity and have entered space leveraging their existing networking and DC (data centre) capabilities.”Vinish Bawa, partner and leader, telecom, at PwC, said the top two telcos are taking distinct approaches in their AI + cloud strategy. “One prioritises enterprise needs with compliant cloud solutions for regulated sectors. The other emphasises consumer ecosystems, bundling cloud with digital services to achieve scale and lock-in.
