Bharti Airtel’s indigenous cloud platform has onboarded nearly 40 clients in a year, with manufacturing firms making up roughly a quarter of its customer base, as the telecom giant aims to meet the rising need for sovereign cloud infrastructure from Indian businesses, as per reports.

The most recent count indicates a continuous growth of the cloud business since its inception in August 2025, when Airtel's digital arm Xtelify introduced Airtel Cloud, a sovereign, telecom-grade cloud platform intended for Indian enterprises.

The number of cloud customers has reached around 40 in total, with nearly 25 percent of them being from the manufacturing sector, sources indicated.

Companies such as VE Commercial Vehicles are utilizing Airtel Cloud, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Airtel Cloud, initially designed for Airtel's extensive digital activities, has proven its capacity to manage 1.4 billion transactions per minute. The India-hosted sovereign platform provides cloud infrastructure, connectivity, and GenAI-based provisioning, allowing enterprises to scale vital and regulated workloads while preserving data control and preventing vendor lock-in, according to the company.

Airtel's Executive Vice Chairman Gopal Vittal mentioned in the company's Q1 FY27 earnings call that Airtel Cloud acquired 11 new clients in the quarter, raising its total customer count to 33 at that moment.

“We are witnessing significant momentum here, as nearly all essential services are now operational on our platform,” he stated regarding the ‘made in India, designed for India’ initiative.

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Consequently, manufacturing is becoming a significant market for cloud services as factories more frequently implement connected machinery, automated production lines, industrial sensors, and AI-powered analytics, producing greater volumes of operational and production data.

For manufacturers, cloud infrastructure is evolving from traditional IT modernization to act as a facilitator for integrating legacy systems, production apps, warehouses, and supply chain platforms, while also delivering the necessary computing and storage capabilities for automation, analytics, and artificial intelligence.

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The growing digitization of factories is highlighting the importance of where industrial data is kept and who manages it, especially considering the sensitivity of intellectual property, proprietary manufacturing methods, and operational data.