Airtel’s corporate division, Airtel Business, is preparing to bring its data center business Nxtra to Africa, where the group has a significant presence.
Vani Venkatesh, CEO of Airtel’s global business, stated: “We already have 40 edge data centers in Africa, and we use these data centers ourselves. We have also invested in two submarine optical cables to Africa, 2Africa and Equiano. With the landing of these cables, we are establishing five ultra large data centers in Africa. We are very eager to achieve significant development in Africa, where Airtel is one of the largest service providers with operations in 14 countries on the continent.”
Airtel Global Business is an international branch of Airtel Business that serves global customers, including service providers, OTT operators, and multinational corporations.
As of now, Nxtra, a joint venture between Airtel and Carlyle, operates only in India, with 12 large data centers and 120 edge data centers. Last year, Carlyle Group acquired a 24% stake in Nxtra, a subsidiary of Airtel, for $325 million.
The increase in broadband usage and user numbers in Africa has led to the prosperity of the data center industry. Several technology companies, including Google, Amazon, Oracle, and Microsoft, have invested in building data centers in Africa.
Although the company has expanded its business in Africa, it acknowledges that the industry is facing macroeconomic challenges, such as an economic recession environment and semiconductor supply chain issues caused by the Ukrainian war.
Venkatesh said, “We are seeing some customers becoming more cautious about their consumption. This does not mean that online spending has decreased, but rather that they may be more restrained, especially considering these macroeconomic factors.”
Venkatesh represents: “The growth expected by customers has further increased the challenge. Compared to three to five years ago, the amount of data transmitted has increased several times. Some customers hope to achieve 99.99% uptime for four diverse paths, so we have a higher responsibility to ensure network upgrades and delivery reliability. Everything is real-time, and delivery times have been shortened. There is redundancy, diversity, and digitization, so it is seamless and on-demand . We are significantly expanding our scale to ensure that we continue to meet the growing needs of our customers.”

Large scale operators and OTTs are driving the growth of international traffic, thereby driving the growth of telecommunications companies in this field. What is beneficial for Airtel is that India and Africa are both growth regions for ultra large scale operators and OTT operators. The majority of the population in India and Africa are still not connected, which means that both regions will be of interest to MAANG – namely Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google.
Even so, enterprises remain a key area of concern for all service providers, and the emergence of new digital infrastructure providers has intensified increasingly fierce competition. For example, Equinix acquired MainOne for $320 million last year, entering the African market.
Venkatesh said, “Therefore, we start with B2C (business to consumer). One thing I learned from this is never to be complacent. We have three pillars to fight against competition. The first is to ensure that our service is excellent, whether it is delivery or post delivery assurance. Next is the product. We are trying to expand the digital scale. We are building some APIs for direct integration, and we are automating internal processes such as feasibility, which will help us get in touch with customers faster. The third is to develop products based on customer needs, as customer needs are constantly changing. How can we adjust ourselves according to different operating models, different ways of serving customers, and different operational partnerships.”
Airtel Global Business recently made the news as it partnered with technology consulting firm Bridgepoint, which will seek to help American companies expand in India and Africa. Airtel plans to establish more such partnerships to develop its global business.