Cloud service provider Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) and Indian telecoms group Bharti Airtel (BSE: 532454; NSE: BHARTIARTL) have entered a partnership to expand cloud accessibility to more than one million enterprise customers across the South Asian country.

As part of the collaboration, Oracle said it will expand its India West (Mumbai) region capacity with Nxtra by Airtel – the data centre subsidiary of Airtel. The expanded Oracle Cloud Mumbai Region will be available in 2022, the provider clarified.

Nxtra by Airtel operates 10 hyperscale data centres and 120 edge data centres. The business has plans to invest Rs. 5000 cr (US$760 million) by 2025 to triple capacity to over 400 MW.

The expanded Mumbai Region will complement Oracle’s existing MeitY-empanelled cloud regions in Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Garrett Ilg, President, Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific, said: “We have witnessed triple-digit growth in the business last year with more and more organisations of all sizes—ranging from top banks and telcos to governments and unicorns—in Asia, turning to OCI to run their mission-critical workloads.

“Our partnership with Airtel is a milestone and together we can truly help Indian businesses fast-track growth and help boost India’s economy.” 

As part of the collaboration, Airtel Business and Oracle will also jointly market Oracle Cloud solutions to enterprise customers in the private and public sectors.

Additionally, the two players will set up a Cloud Centre of Excellence in Gurgaon with a dedicated team of specialists from both organisations.

Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said: “Airtel’s world-class data centre network will support Oracle’s cloud growth in India as they expand their cloud region in the country. Both companies will also partner to co-innovate cloud solutions for India’s digital economy and take these to the market by leveraging Airtel’s leadership in the enterprise segment.

“With its 5G ready network and large investments in digital infrastructure including data centres, Airtel is well positioned to tap the emerging growth opportunities in the enterprise segment as businesses accelerate their digital transformation journeys.”

The number of active Internet users in India is projected to grow from 622 million in 2020 to over 900 million by 2025, driven by affordable smartphones and data tariffs.

With 5G services expected to begin in 2022, the Indian economy will see a further surge in demand for digital services and applications.

Additionally, organisations are moving to cloud-based applications to accelerate their digital transformation journeys.

As a result, India’s public cloud market is expected to grow from $3.6 billion in 2020 to $9.5 billion by 2025, according to Gartner.

Bharti Airtel is 64% owned by Indian conglomerate Bharti Enterprises and with the rest of the stock sitting with Singtel (SGX: Z74), a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings.