Airtel teaming with IBM to bring edge cloud offerings to Indian enterprises

IBM and Bharti Airtel are joining forces to bring secured edge cloud services to enterprises across multiple industries including manufacturing and automotive in India.

"Teaming with Airtel to bring IBM's hybrid cloud offerings to their Indian multi-access edge compute customers will help them embrace the opportunities presented by 5G and edge, like innovating with greater speed and security," said Howard Boville, Head of IBM Cloud Platform.

The collaboration will deploy Airtel's edge computing platform which will include 120 network data centers across 20 cities. Once deployed, the platform will enable large enterprises to accelerate innovative solutions that deliver new value to their clients and operations -- securely at the edge, the companies said on Wednesday.

In a press release, the companies said, "Airtel's edge computing platform, deployed as a hybrid environment based on IBM Cloud Satellite and Red Hat OpenShift, extends secured and open cloud services wherever data resides. This can help improve business performance and customer experience by reducing latency while addressing data security and sovereignty requirements – which is critical as workloads increasingly shift to the edge."

Indian car maker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd intends to use the edge platform to streamline plant productivity and quality operations. By deploying this platform, the automaker expects to boost quality control and ensure their data remains protected at the edge.

"We are excited to work with Airtel Business and IBM to set an even higher benchmark and explore the vast possibilities of deploying AI and analytics at the edge to augment the expertise of our workforce,” said Rajesh Uppal, Senior Executive Director, HR and IT, Maruti Suzuki.

5G is expected to be rolled out later this year in India. According to Airtel, the business value delivered by edge computing can be significantly enhanced when combined with 5G. In India, it has the potential to create a cumulative economic impact of $1 trillion by 2035.