Airtel bets big on sovereign cloud as customer base grows

A company called Airtel helps people and businesses use mobile phones and the internet.

Airtel also has a special business that offers cloud services, which let companies store their information on faraway computers instead of their own machines.

At the end of the June quarter, 33 businesses were using Airtel's cloud, and 11 new ones joined during those three months.

Airtel's cloud is special because it is sovereign by design, which means all the data is kept and managed inside India.

The cloud can handle very large amounts of work, up to 140 crore transactions every minute.

Airtel received certificates from MeitY, an Indian government department, to help sell its cloud services.

A big boss at Airtel, Gopal Vittal, said the company is investing a lot of money to grow the cloud business.

He said it takes time for companies to move their data to a new cloud, and some customers worry about high costs.

Airtel is also selling easier services like backup, storage and video surveillance.

The company hopes to win big deals from regulated sectors and public sector enterprises that need safe, India-based cloud storage.