Bharti Airtel has partnered up with Zscaler, a cloud security company, to launch an AI and cyber threat research centre in India. The pair hope that this move will advance regional resilience and protect sectors including telecoms deemed essential to the nation’s economic and security interests.
The research centre will expand Zscaler’s operations in India, serving as a national platform for collaboration between the private and public sectors, academia and government.
Airtel explained India is the throes of a generational digital transformation, building systems serving its population across critical sectors, which naturally means the national attack surface expands.
The threat landscape is “evolving at machine speed”, with nation-state and financially motivated attackers using AI to probe, target and weaponize vulnerabilities in minutes.
Zscaler noted it is recording millions of infiltration attempts each month, including cyber espionage activity, a surge in attempts to hit private and public landscapes, and attacks targeting multiple industries.
The companies have four aims for the centre: to provide real time intelligence to strengthen national cyber resilience and digital-first businesses; to partner with government agencies to prevent cyberattacks; to drive adoption of modern security frameworks, particularly those focused on AI defences; and to build a cybersecurity talent pipeline.
Zscaler and Airtel are to be founding members, while other institutions from the public and private sectors are invited to join the effort.
Gopal Vittal, Executive Vice Chair at Airtel, said the partnership aims to combine the power of its AI capabilities and deep scale for cybersecurity research. “We will focus on addressing challenges unique to our market to build a safer, more resilient digital India where every citizen and enterprise can connect and thrive with confidence”.
Source: Mobile World Live
Image Credit: Stock Image
