Airtel to Set Up Two New Cloud Zones in Mumbai and Chennai with IBM

New Delhi: Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said that the company plans to set up two new multi-zone regions for Airtel Cloud in Mumbai and Chennai, in collaboration with US IT firm IBM. The multi-zone region for cloud services entails setting up several physical independent data centres in a geographic location.

Bharti Airtel has signed a strategic partnership with IBM to augment its recently launched Airtel Cloud to jointly provide enterprise solutions. “The company is extending the footprint of Airtel Cloud availability zones in India from four to ten, comprising next-gen sustainable data centres,” Bharti Airtel vice chairman and managing director Gopal Vittal said in a statement.

The statement, however, did not disclose financial details of the company’s expansion plan. The development comes a day after Bharti Airtel announced a partnership with Google for setting up its $15 billion AI Hub in Andhra Pradesh, along with Adani group firm AdaniConneX.

“Today, with the IBM partnership, we are adding substantial capabilities to our cloud platform to address the unique needs of several industries that require migration from IBM Power Systems and allow for AI readiness. We will, together, also establish two new multi-zone regions (MZRs) in Mumbai and Chennai soon,” Vittal said.

Under the pact, Airtel and IBM will aim to enable enterprises in regulated industries to scale AI workloads, delivering interoperability across infrastructure, including on-premises, in the cloud, across multiple clouds and at the edge. “Through this partnership, Airtel Cloud customers will be able to deploy the IBM Power systems portfolio as-a-Service, including the latest-generation IBM Power11 autonomous, AI-ready servers for mission-critical applications in regulated industries like banking, healthcare, government and others,” the statement said.

“Through our partnership with Bharti Airtel, clients across India can leverage IBM's innovative cloud offerings designed for workloads that address their strategic business priorities. Together, we will help clients drive true transformation in the era of AI,” IBM SVP and chief commercial officer Rob Thomas said.