Tata Comm partners with AWS to build AI network in India

Tata Communications has announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to establish an artificial intelligence (AI)-ready network across India. 

This new high-speed network will connect key AWS infrastructure points, allowing for the increasing use of AI and cloud computing throughout the country, the company said in an exchange filing on Tuesday.

The network will connect AWS data centres in Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai, creating a dependable and robust digital backbone to help businesses across India build, train, and deploy AI-enabled applications at scale. This initiative is seen as key in upgrading India’s digital infrastructure and facilitating the increased uptake of new technologies across all sectors of the economy.

“AI is transforming industries globally, and our collaboration with AWS positions us at the forefront of this revolution in India,” said Genius Wong, Executive Vice President, Tata Communications, in a statement.

According to him, this association marks the company’s largest ever National Long-Distance program and showcases the company’s unparalleled capability to support large-capacity, complex projects requiring scaled network solutions.

The network is built for high speed, low latency, and the ability to carry massive amounts of information. It will power not just AI and machine learning (ML), but devices and systems that can run using the 5G telecommunications standard and high-performance computing (HPC). This makes it useful in transformed sectors such as healthcare and finance, and industries that depend on massive-scale data, like education and retail.

AWS has two cloud regions operational in India in Mumbai and Hyderabad, and AWS has supporting services like AWS Direct Connect and AWS Edge Network established in Chennai to help customers connect to AWS services securely and faster.

Jesse Dougherty, Vice President of Network Edge Services at AWS, said the infrastructure is designed to support the most data-intensive workloads, like 5G, generative AI, and high-performance computing. “This collaboration will further enable our customers in India to innovate at scale with cloud and generative AI, and drive growth in India’s rapidly expanding digital economy,” Dougherty added.

On July 19, Tata Communications reported a 29.8% year-over-year decline in net profit to ₹381.7 crore for the April-June quarter of fiscal 2023-24, compared to ₹544.8 crore last year. However, revenue from operations increased by 10.7% to ₹4,771.4 crore, up from ₹4,310.5 crore in the same period. Data business revenue also grew, rising 17.1% to ₹3,912 crore.

The recent partnership represents a growing collaboration between cloud service providers and telecom companies, in order to keep up with the rapid growth of AI services in India.