According to reports, Bharti Airtel is planning to launch its fourth digital technology hub in Pune and will employ 500 people as the tele service provider to become a digital service provider.

Pradipt Kapoor, chief information officer, Bharti Airtel says, “Airtel is rapidly scaling up its in-house digital talent pool to support its transformation into a digital telco. Pune being an established IT and tech hub, makes it an obvious choice for Aitel to tap into the talent pool and also drive cross-industry collaboration.”

According to the company, this will be Airtel’s fourth digital hub in India and first in the Western region to support its transition to a digital service company, as 5G services are on the horizon.
The 5G spectrum auctions are slated to take place in June-July this year, and 5G services are expected to rollout by the end of the year.

Reports suggest that, the facility will employ 500 digital engineers including professionals with expertise across multiple experience and domains – Big Data, Machine Learning, Dev Ops, Tech ops, etc. The existing three facilities in Gurgaon, Bengaluru (Airtel X-Labs) and Noida employ close to 3000 people.

The company has made investments worth over $ 46 billion in the last couple of decades creating digital infrastructure over which 40 percent of India’s economic and digital activity takes place.

At present Airtel’s digital assets include offerings like Airtel Thanks app, Wynk Music app, Airtel Xstream content platform which the teleco says accrue over 180 million MAUs (monthly active users).

The digital assets have been fully developed by its in-house digital engineering teams. Besides this, Airtel’s digital offerings also include C-PaaS solution Airtel IQ and Ad-tech platform Airtel Ads along with Airtel IoT.