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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.

HSBC Finds Quantum Computing Boosts Bond Trading Efficiency

HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, announced on Thursday that a quantum computing trial with IBM has produced promising results for bond trading, marking one of the first real-world finance applications of the emerging technology.

The pilot delivered a 34% improvement in predicting the likelihood that a bond trade would be filled at a quoted price, giving HSBC a potential competitive edge over traditional computing methods.

Quantum computing uses the principles of quantum physics to solve complex problems far faster than classical computers. While the technology remains in its early stages with few proven applications, it is seen as having transformative potential for industries such as finance, logistics, and pharmaceuticals.

According to a McKinsey report in June, the global quantum technology market could reach $100 billion within a decade, up from just $4 billion in revenue last year, driven largely by advancements in quantum computing.

HSBC said its experiment combined quantum and classical computing to price trades in the European corporate bond market. Automated algorithms calculate trade prices for client inquiries in real time, factoring in both market conditions and risk.

“This means we now have a tangible example of how today’s quantum computers could solve a real-world business problem at scale,” said Philip Intallura, HSBC’s group head of quantum technologies.

IBM Targets Practical Quantum Computer by 2029, Reveals Roadmap for Larger Systems

IBM announced on Tuesday its goal to deliver a practical quantum computer by 2029, detailing the steps it will take to achieve this milestone. The company also plans to develop a much larger quantum system by 2033.

Quantum computers utilize principles of quantum mechanics to solve complex problems that classical computers could take thousands of years to address. However, current quantum machines dedicate significant resources to error correction, limiting their overall speed advantage.

IBM aims to build the “Starling” quantum computer at a new data center under construction in Poughkeepsie, New York. The system is expected to feature about 200 logical qubits—units of quantum information—enough to demonstrate computational advantages over classical systems.

Competing alongside tech giants Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and various well-funded startups, IBM confronts the challenge of qubit errors by innovating in error-correction algorithms. Since 2019, IBM has adopted a novel approach by designing error-correction methods suited to practical, buildable chips rather than purely theoretical designs.

Jay Gambetta, IBM’s vice president of quantum initiatives, emphasized that the company has resolved the fundamental science questions and now faces a significant engineering challenge to scale up quantum systems. “We’ve answered those science questions. You don’t need a miracle now,” he said. “Now you need a grand challenge in engineering.”

IBM plans to release a series of quantum systems between now and 2027, paving the way toward the more powerful machines targeted for 2029 and beyond.