Bharti Airtel is expanding its focus beyond its core telecom business, with plans to invest Rs 20,000 crore in financial services while accelerating growth across data centres and cloud infrastructure. The strategy was outlined by Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal in the company’s FY26 annual report, where he identified the three businesses as Airtel’s next major growth drivers.
The announcement comes after Airtel invested more than Rs 3.3 lakh crore over the past decade in building its digital infrastructure. According to Mittal, that investment has laid the foundation for the company’s next phase of expansion, which will be driven by AI, enterprise technology and financial inclusion rather than traditional telecom services alone.
A key part of Airtel’s strategy is the expansion of Airtel Money, which recently received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a non-deposit taking Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC).
The company plans to invest Rs 20,000 crore into the business to expand its financial services offerings and deepen financial inclusion. The move positions Airtel to compete more aggressively in India’s rapidly growing digital financial services ecosystem.
Alongside financial services, Airtel is significantly expanding its data centre business through its subsidiary Nxtra by Airtel.
Mittal also highlighted Airtel Cloud as another strategic growth pillar, saying the platform is gaining traction by offering sovereign, telco-grade cloud services tailored to enterprises that require secure, in-country data storage and computing capabilities.
The Airtel chairman noted that the emergence of AI, cloud infrastructure and supportive government policies around data localisation are creating fresh opportunities for the company.
He said Airtel’s role is evolving beyond that of a telecom operator to becoming a provider of the digital infrastructure powering India’s AI-driven economy. The company is also working to promote the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence across enterprise and government use cases.
With investments spanning financial services, cloud and data centres, Airtel is positioning itself to capture growth from India’s expanding digital economy while reducing its dependence on traditional telecom revenues. The strategy reflects a broader industry shift as telecom operators increasingly diversify into technology infrastructure and digital services to unlock new revenue streams.
