India’s top telecom giants, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, are aggressively pivoting beyond traditional connectivity services to capture massive opportunities in artificial intelligence and cloud computing. With India’s cloud market set to explode from $15 billion today to $58 billion by 2030 and AI potentially adding $1.5 trillion to India’s GDP, both companies are deploying distinct strategies to dominate this digital transformation.
The Massive Market Opportunity
According to PwC research, AI and cloud represent the biggest revenue opportunities for telecom operators beyond traditional connectivity services. The numbers are staggering: India’s cloud AI market alone is projected to grow at a CAGR of 45.13%, reaching $100.86 billion by 2033 from just $2.73 billion in 2024.
“AI will drive the next wave of digital transformation,” said Rajiv Ranjan, associate director for cloud and AI at IDC India. “Cloud will support and operate AI. Connectivity and data centre infrastructure are major requirements for this. Telcos see this as a huge opportunity”.
The telecom cloud market specifically is expected to grow from $1.92 billion in 2024 to $12.79 billion by 2035, creating multi-billion-dollar opportunities that both Jio and Airtel are racing to capture.
Jio’s Consumer-First AI Strategy
Reliance Jio is pursuing a B2C-focused approach, bundling low-cost personal data storage with consumer AI services to achieve massive scale. The company has formed mega partnerships with Google Cloud and Meta to embed AI capabilities across its digital ecosystem.
In August 2025, Reliance launched “Reliance Intelligence”, a new AI subsidiary with significant partnerships. The company committed $100 million with Meta (70-30 split) to leverage Meta’s open-source Llama models for enterprise AI solutions.
“Together we want to ensure that everyone in India has access to AI — and eventually superintelligence,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg during Reliance’s annual shareholder meeting.
Jio is also building India’s largest 1 GW AI-ready data center in Jamnagar, housing Nvidia’s most powerful Blackwell GPUs and supported by Reliance’s renewable energy investments. This facility will host a dedicated Google Cloud region to power internal business transformation.
For enterprise clients, Jio is collaborating with Microsoft Azure to offer cloud modernization services while targeting aggressive pricing by bundling cloud with connectivity for startups and smaller businesses.
Airtel’s Enterprise-First Sovereign Cloud Strategy
Bharti Airtel is taking a fundamentally different approach, focusing on enterprise needs with compliant cloud solutions for regulated sectors. The company launched Xtelify, a sovereign cloud platform designed specifically for businesses requiring local data compliance.
“Airtel is targeting the market segment that requires a trusted sovereign cloud offering that helps modernize IT while maintaining local compliance norms,” explained IDC’s Ranjan.
Airtel’s strategy centers on its data center subsidiary Nxtra, which operates a 235 MW edge data center network and plans to add 500 MW capacity over the next five years. The company aims to leverage its existing wide data center footprint to offer sovereign cloud services.
The telecom giant has also deepened its partnership with Google Cloud, seeking to offer open-source AI platforms while signing cloud contracts with international operators, including Singapore’s Singtel and the Philippines’ Globe Telecom.
Airtel’s Bold AI Consumer Play
In a surprising consumer move, Airtel rolled out free Perplexity Pro access to 360 million customers in July 2025, normally a ₹17,000 annual service. This represents one of the largest AI service deployments to consumers globally.
The strategic partnership with Perplexity aims to collect valuable user data while providing premium AI services, creating a data-for-AI value exchange that could reshape how telecom companies monetize their customer relationships.
Different Revenue Models, Same Goal
PwC’s Vinish Bawa highlighted the contrasting approaches: “One prioritizes enterprise needs with compliant cloud solutions for regulated sectors. The other emphasizes consumer ecosystems, bundling cloud with digital services to achieve scale and lock-in. Both strategies are good but different revenue models”.
Airtel’s enterprise-focused model targets immediate revenue from businesses requiring secure, compliant cloud infrastructure, particularly in regulated industries like banking and healthcare.
Jio’s consumer-first approach aims for massive scale and ecosystem lock-in, leveraging its 475 million subscriber base to create network effects that make switching costs prohibitive for users.
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Infrastructure Race Intensifies
Both companies are making massive infrastructure investments to support their AI and cloud ambitions. Reliance is building the country’s largest AI-ready data center, while Airtel is expanding its edge computing network across India.
The competition extends to 5G network deployments, which provide the low-latency connectivity essential for AI applications. Both operators are positioning their 5G networks as the foundation for delivering real-time AI services to consumers and enterprises.
Market Leadership Battle
Industry experts believe both strategies have merit for capturing different segments of India’s massive digital transformation. Airtel’s focus on enterprise compliance and data sovereignty appeals to risk-averse businesses, while Jio’s consumer ecosystem approach could capture the mass market.
“This is not just about technology but about creating new business models,” noted a telecom industry analyst. “The winner will be determined by execution and the ability to monetize these massive investments”.
As India’s digital economy accelerates, both Jio and Airtel are positioning themselves as essential infrastructure providers for the AI-powered future, moving well beyond their traditional roles as connectivity providers to become comprehensive digital transformation partners.