As global enterprises accelerate their digital transformation, 2025 marked a pivotal shift towards intelligent, secure, and sustainable connectivity. In this article, Sharat Sinha, CEO, Airtel Business argues that with AI, Cloud, and subsea infrastructure converging, integrated digital foundations are becoming essential for resilience, agility, and global competitiveness, setting the stage for a new era of borderless innovation in 2026.
2025 was more than just another year of digital progress and marked a decisive leap as technology continued to accelerate the creation of a borderless digital ecosystem, where breakthrough innovations fostered transformative cross-border collaborations, driving new models of growth for enterprises worldwide.
Today, seamless and secure connectivity have become the foundation that are enabling organisations to scale, compete, and lead on the global stage, powered by robust physical infrastructure such as fibre and subsea cables, as well as resilient Cloud and Edge technologies. Generative AI, real-time applications and Cloud-native business models are turning connectivity from a background utility into a strategic asset that shapes where data, capital and innovation flow.
For enterprises, the question is no longer just “Is my network fast enough?” but “Is my digital infrastructure resilient, secure and future-ready?” Fragmented networks and siloed Cloud deployments are therefore giving way to integrated digital infrastructure, where high-capacity connectivity, high-performing Cloud, cybersecurity and data centres are architected as one stack rather than being separate line items.
Looking ahead, as AI, Edge, and IoT converge with surging Cloud adoption, intelligent and adaptive networks will become indispensable. Key trends like AI-powered networks and technology solutions along with zero-trust security will continue to redefine how global businesses future-proof their operations for agility, security, and scale.
In this journey, submarine cables with its next-generation fibre and network architecture will continue to serve as the backbone of global connectivity, carrying nearly all intercontinental data traffic. For this, advancing global fibre and cable investments for facilitating secure, high-performance connectivity, will continue to be the pillars that will empower businesses worldwide to achieve agility, reach, and differentiated customer experiences in this era of fast paced digital transformation. The upcoming subsea cable projects will enable greater internet capacity and speed, benefiting not only local enterprises but enhancing international data flows across continents.
The move toward diversified cable routes and advanced fibre investments is therefore vital for supporting high-performance data exchanges and future-proofing infrastructure against geopolitical and environmental risks. We have been championing this international data flow by making Asia, especially India, an anchor for international data flows, especially in routes between South-East Asia, Africa and Europe. We have brought global cable systems like SEA-ME-WE-6 and 2Africa Pearls home to Indian shores this year.
Reliable and secure connectivity, along with a complete suite of future-ready technology solutions will continue enabling businesses with agility, resilience, and scale to innovate rapidly, deliver differentiated experiences to customers and lead with agility in dynamic markets.
In addition to future-ready networks that maximise business value, sustainable data centres and AI-ready Cloud platforms that offer flexible, secure, and sovereign service are also emerging as standards for enterprise growth. Leading investments in purpose-built data centre facilities that are sustainable and renewable energy-powered are therefore taking predominance as the new benchmark for ensuring data centre energy efficiency and environmental responsibility.
As enterprises worldwide look to 2026 and beyond, they will need partners who will harness intelligent, secure, and sustainable digital infrastructure to power their always-on collaboration and innovation.
At Airtel Business, our ambition is to lead this new era of global connectivity by combining our diversified subsea and terrestrial networks with AI-ready cloud, sustainable data centres, and high-security, so that enterprises can an rely on us as their preferred partner for resilient, high-performance connectivity and future-ready technology on a global scale.
An integrated digital foundation will be the much-needed backbone for a new era of borderless collaboration, enabling enterprises to innovate with confidence in a world where connectivity has become the foundation of competitiveness.
Author biography:
Sharat Sinha is CEO of Airtel Business. Airtel is an India headquartered communications solutions provider with over 500 million customers in 17 countries across South Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top three mobile operators globally and its networks cover over two billion people. Airtel Business provides solutions to business across India, US, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, and SAARC.
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