Airtel Business, ITI target banks, PSUs with sovereign cloud, private 5G

Airtel Business, the enterprise arm of Bharti Airtel, and state-owned telecom equipment maker ITI Limited have entered into a strategic partnership to jointly offer digital infrastructure and technology services to Indian enterprises, expanding their play across sovereign cloud, private 5G, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Under the partnership, the companies will combine Airtel Business’ enterprise connectivity and digital services portfolio with ITI’s telecom engineering and manufacturing capabilities and its presence across government and public-sector customers, the companies said on Monday.

The collaboration will cover enterprise connectivity, data centres and sovereign cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), AI-powered solutions, low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite services and cybersecurity.

The companies will particularly target regulated sectors such as banking and public-sector undertakings, where requirements around data sovereignty, security and regulatory compliance are becoming increasingly important as organisations move critical workloads to the cloud.

The joint portfolio will include optical fibre, Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON), software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), private 4G and 5G networks, alongside secure data-centre and sovereign-cloud infrastructure. Industrial IoT applications for asset tracking, AI-powered analytics and cybersecurity services will also be offered.

Sovereign infrastructure in focus

The partnership comes as telecom operators and technology providers expand their sovereign infrastructure offerings amid growing demand from enterprises and government organisations to keep sensitive data and workloads within India.

“As India accelerates into its next phase of digital growth, building a foundation that is resilient, sovereign, and regulatorily compliant is imperative,” Sharat Sinha, chief executive of Airtel Business, said.

Sinha said the partnership would help enterprises modernise legacy technology environments, strengthen business continuity and accelerate digitalisation.

ITI chairman and managing director Rajesh Rai said the companies would jointly identify customer requirements across connectivity, hyperscale data centres, cybersecurity and IoT, leveraging their respective customer reach and technology capabilities.

The two companies also plan to explore opportunities related to India’s defence and security requirements, with an emphasis on domestic innovation and manufacturing under the government’s Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat programmes. Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed.

The agreement gives Airtel Business another route to extend its enterprise technology portfolio, particularly across government and regulated sectors, as the company expands beyond traditional connectivity into cloud, cybersecurity, IoT and AI-led services.

ITI, a public-sector undertaking under the Department of Telecommunications, manufactures telecom equipment and provides technology solutions to government, defence and enterprise customers.

The partnership also comes as Indian telecom operators increasingly look beyond connectivity for enterprise growth. Vi Business, for instance, has built out offerings across cloud, IoT and managed security. Its 2026 MSME Growth Insights Study, released in June, found that 57% of businesses surveyed viewed AI as a key growth enabler, while 25% had already integrated AI into their operations.

The moves underline how telecom operators are increasingly positioning connectivity as one layer of a broader enterprise technology stack spanning cloud, security, IoT and AI, as they compete for a larger share of corporate technology spending.