Bharti Airtel Shifts Growth Focus to Financial Services, Cloud and Data Centres

Following an investment of ₹3.3 lakh crore in digital infrastructure over the past decade, Bharti Airtel is now shifting its focus toward financial services, data centres and cloud as its next growth drivers, Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said in the telecom operator's FY2026 annual report.

He also committed ₹20,000 crore to strengthen its NBFC arm, Airtel Money, while its data centre subsidiary, Nxtra, recently secured $1 billion (approximately ₹9,500 crore) in funding to expand its infrastructure to 1 gigawatt (GW) of capacity.

"Over the last few years, we took a calibrated approach to build new growth engines for Airtel. These bold bets yielded strong outcomes and have grown our conviction in three adjacencies where we believe Airtel has a clear right to win -- financial services, data centres and Airtel Cloud," Mittal said in the report released late on Saturday.

Mittal announced that Airtel Money has received approval from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a non-deposit-taking Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC).

"This is a significant milestone for your company, as also, for the broader goal of expanding the reach of financial inclusion in India.

Airtel Money will be suitably capitalised over the years," Mittal said.

Highlighting Airtel's digital infrastructure ambitions, Mittal said the company's data centre arm, Nxtra, is on course to build 1 GW of capacity over the next few years after recently raising USD 1 billion (around Rs 9,500 crore). The expansion is being driven by India's accelerating digital transformation, rising cloud adoption, and increasing demand for data localisation.

"Our third growth engine, Airtel Cloud, is seeing encouraging early traction. Our sovereign, telco-grade cloud offering addresses an emerging need in the Indian market. Airtel Cloud allows our customers to get access to world-class cloud offerings hosted and held in India and delivered in a cost-effective manner," Mittal said.

According to Mittal, Airtel has already secured more than 24 customer deals for its cloud platform.

He added that supportive government policies around cloud computing, artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure are expected to accelerate investment and strengthen India's digital ecosystem.

"Building on this momentum, the long-term tax holiday laid out by the Government of India for cloud and AI-led data centre investments is a timely initiative, expected to catalyse sustained capital inflows into digital infrastructure, while assuring the people of India of sovereign, secure data flows," Mittal said.

The government expects investments in the country's data centre sector to surpass USD 200 billion (over Rs 18 lakh crore) this year.

Reflecting on Airtel's network investments, Mittal said, "Over the last 10 years, your company has invested significantly with over Rs 3.3 trillion in creating one of India's strongest digital infrastructure platforms. The emergence of the 5G economy is defining the next phase of growth, enabling new use cases across industries."

He added that 5G is driving the shift towards high-speed, low-latency connectivity and creating new opportunities through wider network availability.

"Our 5G customer base has grown to 188 million. Airtel's 5G Plus network now carries half of all wireless data traffic on our network," Mittal added.