Jio, Airtel double down on AI, cloud to drive growth
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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. Both strategies are good but different revenue models,” he said.IDC’s Ranjan explained that Jio Cloud is designed as a more B2C-focused offering, bundling low-cost personal data storage and potential consumer services on top of it.“For small and mid-market enterprises, Jio is targeting aggressive pricing by bundling cloud with connectivity, aiming to support startups and smaller migration projects. For larger enterprise clients, Jio is collaborating with Microsoft Azure to offer cloud modernisation services,” he said.These moves come alongside Jio’s mega partnerships with Google Cloud and Meta, which are expected to boost its ecosystem play by embedding AI and cloud into digital services for consumers and businesses alike.Meanwhile, Airtel along with its data centre subsidiary Nxtra, is targeting the market segment that requires a trusted sovereign cloud offering that helps modernise their IT to add scalability and agility and still maintain the local compliance norms.“This solution is more focused on telecom industry. Nxtra would leverage its existing wide data centre footprint, and offer sovereign cloud services on top of it,” Ranjan said.Partnerships
Reliance Industries is building a 1 GW AI-ready data centre – the country’s largest – in Jamnagar, housing Nvidia’s most powerful Blackwell GPUs. It will be supported by Reliance’s new energy investments.Jamnagar will also host a dedicated Google Cloud region to power the oil-to-telecom conglomerate’s internal business transformation. As for AI services, it has partnered with open-source leader Meta.Bharti Airtel, which operates an edge data centre network of 235 MW through its subsidiary Nxtra Data, plans to add 500 MW capacity over the next five years, building on its current 10% market share, its management told analysts in a recent meeting.On the cloud front, Airtel has launched Xtelify, a sovereign cloud platform and signed contracts with Singapore’s Singtel and the Philippines’ Globe Telecom. Airtel also deepened its partnership with Google Cloud, seeking to offer open-source AI platforms.Hyperscaler Challenge
But experts cautioned that the Indian telcos face stiff competition from global hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft, and Google.“Telcos can’t outspend hyperscalers, but they can differentiate at the edge with sovereign solutions, last-mile reach, and regulatory trust,” said PwC’s Bawa.IDC’s Ranjan noted that telcos should focus on hybrid cloud, sovereign offerings, and edge deployments where hyperscalers are less dominant. “They should leverage their connectivity and wide DC footprint to give customers a complete hybrid cloud experience,” he said.