Kyndryl renews 3-year partnership with Vodafone Idea to strengthen IT, cybersecurity backbone

Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL), India’s third-largest telecom operator, has renewed its partnership with IT major Kyndryl for three years. The collaboration is aimed at overhauling the telecom operator’s IT operations, automation capabilities and cybersecurity posture.

As part of the expanded scope, Kyndryl will build a unified cyber resilience framework covering security governance, identity and access management, data protection, zero-touch services, incident response and recovery. The company will also redesign Vi’s cybersecurity architecture to meet evolving compliance needs and strengthen its ability to detect and respond to threats. By reducing manual interventions and improving threat visibility, the move is expected to accelerate Vi’s recovery from disruptions and safeguard critical business data.

Kyndryl will also deploy a next-generation IT operations model powered by automation and data-led intelligence. This is expected to enhance service delivery, improve operational agility, and lower costs. The company will lead transformation projects in backup, storage and continuous data protection (CDP), modernising Vi’s underlying infrastructure and improving service reliability.

A central part of the collaboration continues to be Kyndryl Bridge, the company’s AI-driven open integration platform. Vi uses the platform to support automation at scale and streamline operations. Kyndryl Bridge has already delivered more than 1,000 automations for Vi, reducing event noise by 15% and enabling unified observability of business services. Globally, the platform generates over 15 million AI-powered insights monthly for more than 1,200 customers.

“At Vi, our focus is on building a resilient, scalable and intelligent IT backbone that can support rapid innovation and business agility,” said Jagbir Singh, CTO, Vi. “Our partnership with Kyndryl enables us to leverage advanced automation, AI-driven insights and a zero-touch operations model to optimize our IT infrastructure.”

Lingraju Sawkar, President, Kyndryl India, said the renewed partnership affirms Vi’s confidence in the company’s expertise in managing mission-critical systems. “Our deep understanding of Vodafone India’s business priorities has enabled us to consistently deliver innovations that have strengthened its IT and digital backbone,” he said.

Kyndryl has been a key partner to Vi through several major transformation phases, including integration efforts during the Vodafone–Idea merger, navigating the COVID-19 crisis with a robust business continuity plan, and executing more than two dozen consolidation projects to streamline business operations.

The renewed partnership positions, as Vi notes, will help the telco better align its technology roadmap with business goals, accelerate digital service rollouts and maximise return on IT investments at a time when telecom operators are embracing automation, data-driven operations and cloud-first architectures to stay competitive.