iWorld
Airtel’s digital arm Xtelify launches ‘Airtel Cloud’
MUMBAI: Xtelify, a fully-owned subsidiary of Bharti Airtel (‘Airtel’) housing all of Airtel’s digital assets and capabilities, launched a sovereign, telco-grade cloud platform – ‘Airtel Cloud’. Tailored to handle 140 crore transactions per minute for Airtel’s own use in India, this sovereign cloud platform is now being extended to meet the ever-evolving needs of businesses in India. Hosted on next-gen sustainable data centres, with Gen-AI based provisioning, and managed by 300 certified cloud experts, the highly secure and reliable Airtel Cloud offers IaaS, PaaS and advanced connectivity and guarantees secure migration, effortless scaling, lower costs and no vendor lock-ins.
Xtelify also launched an AI-powered, future-ready software platform that will help telcos all around the world rid themselves of underlying complexity, improve customer experience, lower churn and raise ARPU. Addressing every layer of the telecom value chain, the solution comes with a converged data engine for AI led insights and intelligence at scale, a Workforce platform for real time task streamlining and an experience platform for managing every element of the customer journey for a telco.
Xtelify signed three global partnerships for the newly launched platform.
1. With Singtel, Xtelify will deploy an enterprise-grade, plug-and-play transformative platform – ‘Xtelify Work’ equipping Singtel’s field teams in Singapore with AI-powered capabilities like fleet optimization, automated task management and real-time tracking and governance that will enhance their productivity.
2. With Globe Telecom, Xtelify will deploy its cutting edge, next-generation, AI-powered customer services platform – ‘Xtelify Serve’ in Philippines. This will help Globe Telecom in elevating it’s customer experience at scale through omni-channel service assurance, streamline business processes and intelligent data-driven operations.
3. With Airtel Africa, Xtelify will provide its software platforms, which includes Data Engine, Work and IQ. Deploying Xtelify Data Engine and Xtelify Work will empower Airtel Africa’s 150K-strong field team across 14 countries with market insights for micro-targeted strategies and unlock critical use cases like spam and fraud protection for their customers across Africa. Xtelify IQ will enable secure, real-time, omnichannel customer engagement, enhancing both service quality and customer experience.
Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and MD ̶ Bharti Airtel, said, “It is a very pivotal moment in our history as we take our world class, home grown platforms of Airtel Cloud and software solutions to businesses in India and telcos all over the world. We are privileged to have signed on partnerships with three top tier companies already – Singtel, Globe Telecom and Airtel Africa.”
“Within Airtel, we have been actively harnessing digital innovations at unmatched scale to transform our services and enhance customer experience at Airtel for many years now. This has involved powering over 590 million customer touchpoints and solving some of the most complex telecom challenges in the world. All this is enabled by Airtel Cloud where all our applications run at a very compelling cost. Today, we are also excited to take our telco-grade, sovereign-cloud platform and help businesses in India innovate faster, scale smarter and stay secure in today’s rapidly-evolving digital landscape. All controls of our cloud will reside strictly within the country ensuring zero possibility of any entity outside India being able to access any part of this data or its working”, Vittal added.
Singtel Singapore CEO Ng Tian Chong said: “We are always looking for ways to better equip our field engineers so we can deliver the best possible experiences to our customers. This platform enables us to reimagine our workflows with AI at the core, improving both efficiency and customer service. By optimising dispatch and resource management, our engineers can reach customers more quickly, resolve issues with greater accuracy and reduce our overall carbon footprint. We’re also able to enhance productivity, strengthen governance, and ultimately deliver more value to our customers.”
Globe Telecom president and CEO Carl Cruz said, “At Globe, our North Star has always been our deep desire to help uplift the lives of Filipinos by creating meaningful, reliable, and human-centered experiences. This partnership with Airtel and Xtelify is a bold step forward in that aspiration, empowering us to serve our customers with greater empathy, intelligence, and speed. By integrating Xtelify’s AI-powered Case Management Platform into our operations, we bring to life our commitment to best-in-class service across every journey, from the first touchpoint to final resolution. This transformation enables a more seamless and transparent experience for our customers, where concerns are addressed with clarity, accountability, and genuine care.”
“We are proud to collaborate with Airtel and Xtelify, two like-minded partners equally committed to raising the bar for customer experience globally. Together, we are not just launching a platform, we are building a new standard for service excellence, one that helps bring our shared vision of a more admired and more customer-centric telco to life,” Cruz added.
“We are excited to have Xtelify as a core technology partner, enabling us to deliver meaningful digital advancements and enriching the lives of millions across Africa,” said Airtel Africa group chief information officer, Jacques Barkhuizen.
Gaming
Sony raises PS5 prices for second time in under a year
US disc edition jumps $100 to $649.99 as memory costs surge.
MUMBAI: Sony just hit the pause button on affordable gaming because when memory prices skyrocket, even the Playstation has to pay the premium. Sony has announced its second price increase for the Playstation 5 range in less than a year, citing pressures in the global economic landscape and a sharp rise in memory component costs driven by AI demand.
In the US, the PS5 disc edition will rise from $549.99 to $649.99, a $100 hike while the digital edition increases to $599.99. The more powerful PS5 Pro will jump $150 to $899.99. The Playstation Portal remote player will also rise by $50 to $249.99. The new prices take effect on 2 April 2026.
Similar increases have been applied in the UK (£90 per model), Europe and Japan. Sony last raised PS5 prices in the US in August 2025.
“We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide,” Sony said in a blog post.
The hikes come amid an unprecedented surge in memory prices, as manufacturers prioritise supply for AI data centres. Analysts say Sony had likely secured price protections for components that have now expired, forcing the company to protect its hardware margins.
Ampere Analysis research director of games Piers Harding-Rolls told CNBC that further increases from Microsoft and Nintendo would not be surprising, though Nintendo may hesitate to raise the price of its recently launched Switch 2 while establishing the new platform.
The increases arrive eight months before the highly anticipated release of GTA 6, which is expected to drive strong console sales. However, early reactions online have been a mix of disappointment and resignation, with growing concern that premium gaming is increasingly becoming a hobby for higher-income players.
In a sector already grappling with tariffs, inflation and component shortages, Sony’s move underscores a tough reality: even the most popular consoles are not immune to the rising cost of keeping up with the latest technology.
