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Bharti Airtel partners with IBM to boost cloud services amid India’s AI boom

Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator, has announced a new partnership with IBM to expand its cloud service offerings through the recently launched Airtel Cloud platform, the companies said on Wednesday.

The collaboration will allow Airtel Cloud customers to deploy IBM’s AI-ready servers and enterprise cloud tools, targeting regulated sectors such as banking, healthcare, and government. The move comes amid surging demand for computing capacity in India, driven by the country’s rapid adoption of artificial intelligence technologies and localized data storage requirements.

The announcement follows Google’s $15 billion investment to build an AI data center in Andhra Pradesh, a project in which Airtel is also a partner. The facility, to be established in Visakhapatnam, underscores India’s growing importance as a digital infrastructure hub.

Airtel’s digital arm, Xtelify, launched Airtel Cloud in August, positioning it as a key player in India’s expanding cloud ecosystem. As part of the new partnership, Airtel and IBM will establish two Multizone Regions (MZRs) in Mumbai and Chennai, which will distribute cloud infrastructure across multiple zones to ensure data security and uninterrupted operations in case of system failures.

“These Multizone Regions will help Indian businesses meet data residency rules while ensuring their critical workloads remain secure and continuously available,” said Gopal Vittal, vice chairman and managing director of Bharti Airtel.

The partnership is part of Airtel’s broader strategy to integrate global cloud expertise with its extensive network infrastructure to serve India’s fast-growing digital economy.

Oracle to deploy AMD’s MI450 AI chips in major cloud expansion

Oracle announced plans to integrate Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD) upcoming MI450 artificial intelligence chips into its cloud infrastructure, with deployment scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2026. The companies said the initial rollout will include 50,000 processors, with further expansion expected through 2027 and beyond.

The partnership marks a major win for AMD, securing another top-tier client for its next-generation AI chips, while giving Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) a competitive boost in the global race to provide compute power for AI model training and deployment. “Demand for large-scale AI capacity is accelerating as next-generation AI models outgrow the limits of current clusters,” the companies said in a joint statement.

The announcement comes as demand for AI hardware surges amid the explosion of applications like ChatGPT. AMD’s shares rose over 3% in premarket trading, defying broader market weakness driven by renewed U.S.-China trade tensions, while Oracle’s stock slipped about 1%.

AMD recently unveiled a multi-year deal with OpenAI to supply the same MI450 chips, in an agreement that gives the ChatGPT developer an option to acquire up to 10% of AMD. The companies are also collaborating on a 1-gigawatt AI data facility based on the chip architecture.

The new AI superclusters at Oracle will use AMD’s “Helios” rack design, a fully integrated system combining GPUs and CPUs, mirroring Nvidia’s own rack-scale solutions. The deal underscores AMD’s ambition to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in the high-performance AI hardware market.

Alibaba Cloud opens second data centre in Dubai to expand AI and cloud services

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and artificial intelligence arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has launched its second data centre in Dubai, nine years after opening its first in the region. The expansion reflects Alibaba’s ambition to strengthen its global cloud computing footprint and support rising demand across the Middle East.

The launch is part of Alibaba’s broader commitment to invest 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) over three years in cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities. Although the company did not disclose specific financial details for the Dubai facility, it said the move aims to empower both public and private sectors in adopting artificial intelligence technologies more rapidly.

“The Middle East’s advantageous position in fast-tracking AI adoption and its collaborative ecosystem are crucial enablers for companies to thrive,” said Eric Wan, vice president of Alibaba Cloud International and regional general manager of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has emerged as a regional leader in AI development, investing billions to diversify its economy beyond oil. In May, the UAE announced plans to build the largest AI campus outside the United States through partnerships with Nvidia, OpenAI, and other global tech firms.

At the GITEX Global technology exhibition in Dubai, Alibaba Cloud also revealed new partnerships with companies such as Abu Dhabi-backed Wio Bank, aiming to use its local data infrastructure to accelerate AI and fintech deployment across the region.