India

Alphabet will invest €5.5 billion in Germany through 2029 to expand AI-capable cloud infrastructure and office capacity, anchoring new buildouts in the Frankfurt Rhine-Main region. Google will construct a new data center in Dietzenbach, near Frankfurt, and continue scaling its Hanau campus opened in 2023. With Frankfurt’s role as Europe’s interconnection hub—home to DE-CIX—placement in Rhine-Main positions Google to serve latency-sensitive AI, analytics, and financial services workloads. Google Cloud will bring expanded capacity for services such as Vertex AI and Gemini models into its German regions, enabling enterprises to run training, fine-tuning, and inference closer to users and data.
Reliance Jio’s six-plan lineup for November 2025 blends low entry pricing with AI, cloud, and OTT hooks, signaling how prepaid is evolving from pure connectivity to service-led bundles. Starting at Rs 189, Jio is segmenting prepaid users by usage intensity (voice-first, balanced data, and long-validity) while nudging them into its digital stack: JioTV for content, JioAICloud for storage, and on select offers, Google Gemini Pro for AI. As 5G coverage and usage expand, Jio’s add-ons are designed to create reasons to stay on-network and upgrade. AI benefits in prepaid are rare globally; anchoring them to eligibility criteria and higher-tier 5G plans suggests an upsell path that can improve monetization without headline tariff hikes.
A cascade of offers from OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity—amplified by Airtel and Reliance Jio—signals a deliberate push to convert India’s scale into durable AI usage, data, and future revenue. With more than 900 million internet users, rock-bottom mobile data prices, and a young, mobile-first population, India offers the world’s deepest top-of-funnel for AI adoption. Giving away premium access—such as a year of ChatGPT’s low-cost “Go” tier, Jio’s bundling of Gemini, or Airtel’s tie-up with Perplexity Pro—maximizes trial, habituation, and data collection across diverse languages and contexts. Even a low single-digit conversion rate translates into millions of subscribers, while non-converters still contribute valuable signals that improve models.
Singtel has sold another slice of its Bharti Airtel holding, freeing up capital to fund growth while continuing to rebalance a long-standing strategic investment. Singapore-based Singtel monetised roughly 0.8% of Airtel for about S$1.5 billion (approximately US$1.2 billion), recording an estimated net gain of S$1.1 billion. The sale is part of a multi-year capital management programme launched in 2021. Management has framed the initiative as a way to strengthen the balance sheet and redeploy capital into higher-growth digital infrastructure and digital services, while progressively equalising its Airtel ownership with Bharti Enterprises over time.
India has ceded the lowest-tariff crown to Bangladesh and Egypt, yet it still leads on value through generous allowances and low data unit costs. Indian base plans commonly include unlimited voice, whereas Bangladesh and Egypt restrict voice to roughly 100 and 70 minutes respectively at entry level. On data, incremental purchase economics are unusually attractive: an extra Rs 100 typically buys around 26 GB, or about Rs 4 per GB, keeping India among the most affordable data markets globally. Even after adjusting for purchasing power parity, India remains at the affordable end of global tariff rankings.
Enterprise demand is shifting from project-based consulting to managed, outcome-driven operations infused with AI and data. By combining WNS's scaled operations with Capgemini's consulting, engineering, and cloud capabilities, the company aims to capture this demand with end-to-end, AI-enabled "run and transform" offerings. The deal expands Capgemini's delivery footprint in India, strengthens its business services unit, and adds vertical platforms and playbooks that can be cross-sold to Capgemini's installed base in North America and Europe. For WNS clients, it opens access to broader transformation capabilities—cloud, data, and engineering—while preserving managed services continuity.
Jio closed the quarter ended 30 September with 234 million 5G users, up 86 million year-on-year and now approaching half of its 506.4 million total mobile base. Financial momentum tracked the subscriber and traffic surge. Jio Platforms posted quarterly revenue of INR 426.5 billion, up 14.9% year-on-year, and net profit of INR 73.8 billion, up 12.8%. Jio’s fixed wireless access service, Jio AirFiber, more than tripled year-on-year to 9.5 million subscribers. Bottom line: Jio’s 5G is now at meaningful scale with rising ARPU, heavier usage, and fast-growing FWA—setting up a monetization phase led by targeted pricing actions, application partnerships, and enterprise services as 5G-Advanced capabilities arrive.
Ericsson’s Microwave Outlook 2025 points to a backhaul market that will be almost evenly split between microwave and fiber by 2030, reshaping transport decisions for dense 5G and future 6G builds. Microwave already carries traffic for most live 5G networks worldwide, and a rising mix of E-band and emerging higher bands is closing the capacity gap with fiber for short- to medium-range links. For operators facing site densification, fiber lead times, and rising build costs, microwave provides a fast, resilient, and cost-optimized path to scale. E-band deployments are accelerating and overtaking legacy 38 GHz usage in several markets.
India’s mobile industry lobby is pushing for tariff corrections as network spending rises faster than service revenues. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) says operators face a growing mismatch between capital outlays and tariff-led returns. By its estimate, the cumulative gap up to 2024 was already around Rs 10,000 crore and is widening in 2025 as data consumption accelerates. COAI argues that a handful of large traffic generators (LTGs) are responsible for most network load without directly contributing to network build costs. Expect a mix of tariff rationalization, plan redesign, and targeted capex as operators chase sustainable returns.
India and the United Kingdom have launched the India–UK Connectivity and Innovation Centre to accelerate secure, AI-driven, and resilient telecom technologies over the next four years. The two governments committed an initial £24 million—roughly ₹250–₹282 crore depending on exchange rates—to fund applied research, joint testbeds, field trials, and standards contributions in emerging telecom domains. The investment concentrates on three pillars: AI in telecommunications, non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) for satellite and airborne connectivity, and telecoms cybersecurity with open, interoperable systems. The multi-year window aligns to the critical runway for 5G‑Advanced and early 6G experimentation.
Telecom Secretary Neeraj Mittal underscored that AI will be central to the next generation of networks, not an add-on. The direction aligns with industry momentum: 5G-Advanced is already introducing AI-enabled RAN and core features via 3GPP, while 6G initiatives under the ITU-R IMT-2030 framework envision AI-native control loops, sensing-assisted connectivity, and tight integration of compute and communications. India expects 6G trials to begin around 2028, with commercial deployments to follow. Operators that harden their AI and automation capabilities during 5G-Advanced will enter 6G with a competitive execution advantage.
India Mobile Congress 2025 in New Delhi framed a clear ambition: scale domestic innovation, shape 6G, and turn telecom into a larger engine of GDP growth. Leaders underscored a whole-of-government approach, with multiple ministries backing IMC and the Department of Telecommunications and the Cellular Operators Association of India co-hosting. India’s telecom and digital sector is estimated to contribute roughly 12–14% to GDP today. Leaders at IMC projected this could reach about 20% by the mid-2030s if India scales advanced connectivity, software-led services, and domestic manufacturing. India’s 6G push was tied to a potential GDP uplift exceeding a trillion dollars by 2035.
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