IBM ties up with Airtel to offer cloud services with data residency
ETtech October 16, 2025 11:40 AM
Synopsis

Under the new partnership, IBM plans to offer its software-as-a-service portfolio with full data-residency compliance through Airtel’s cloud platform. The companies will set up two multi-cloud regions in Mumbai and Chennai and expand availability zones from four to ten, Patel said. These sites will also serve as landing zones for IBM’s SAAS portfolio.

IBM, through a newly announced partnership with Bharti Airtel, looks to address India’s fast-growing private-cloud demand and meet data-residency needs of large enterprises, a top official of the US tech major said.

Sandip Patel, managing director of IBM India & South Asia, on Wednesday also said India has the potential to emerge as the skill capital of the world in the AI era and that US protectionism and H-1B visa restrictions have yet to have any material business impact even as companies are treading with caution.

“With the demographic dividend and the amount of inherent talent, India can truly become the skills capital of the world, if we have the right strategy to nurture it,” he told ET.


Under the new partnership, IBM plans to offer its software-as-a-service portfolio with full data-residency compliance through Airtel’s cloud platform.

The companies will set up two multi-cloud regions in Mumbai and Chennai and expand availability zones from four to ten, Patel said. These sites will also serve as landing zones for IBM’s SAAS portfolio.

The executive did not disclose the deal size or investment plan.

He explained that the offering is not targeted at the mass market, but the likes of banks and large FMCG players who want public-cloud agility without moving mission-critical workloads there.

Patel also highlighted the strong incumbency of IBM’s mainframe servers, which power nearly 95% of India’s banking transactions and 100% credit card transactions.

When asked about slow uptake of private cloud offerings in India, he said the market has lacked a comprehensive solution, which addresses regulatory needs, agility and low-latency connectivity yet.

IBM, which helped create world’s first commercial mainframe computers in the 1950s, has today optimised the systems for running on-chip AI inference workloads.

Addressing the debate on AI’s impact on jobs, Patel said one must not look from the lens of the “AI causes layoffs” narrative.

“If I have to talk about IBM, we continue to rebalance our workforce based on where we see the needs of our clients,” he said. “Yes, AI is fundamentally changing jobs. But it has also opened up the room for many more new roles like prompt engineering, where demand is exceeding the supply of right talent today.”

The right question to ponder right now is India’s need to reskill, he said, highlighting the country’s potential to emerge as the world’s skill capital.

“I strongly believe, it has to be a triumvirate of the government, academia and the industry working together,” Patel said.

He compared the ongoing geopolitical uncertainty with the Covid-19 pandemic era, when the technology sector remained resilient and in fact emerged as a big enabler in hindsight.
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