Airtel bets big on cloud, finance after `3.3 lakh crore investment

Bharti Airtel is stepping up investments in financial services, data centres and cloud computing after investing more than ₹3.3 lakh cr in digital infrastructure over the past decade, Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said in the company's annual report.

The telecom operator has announced a ₹20,000-cr investment in non-banking financial company Airtel Money, while its data centre arm, Nxtra, recently raised $1 bn to support its plan of building 1 gigawatt of capacity.  Mittal said Airtel has identified financial services, data centres and Airtel Cloud as its next growth engines. Airtel Money has received approval from the RBI to operate as a non-deposit taking NBFC, a move he said would strengthen financial inclusion.

He added that the business would be progressively capitalised. Nxtra remains on track to build 1 GW of capacity, supported by rising cloud adoption, rapid digitalisation and increasing data localisation requirements. Airtel Cloud has also secured more than 24 customer deals, providing sovereign, India-hosted cloud services. 

— PTI