We had the pleasure of interviewing Randeep Sekhon, the chief technology officer at Airtel, on the latest Silicon Valley Tech Talks show. Randeep enlightened us on the mobile network industry landscape and the opportunities available in the India and South Asian markets.

Key highlights from our discussion with Randeep are the following:

(1) We discussed key strategic priorities for Airtel in the next few years. Airtel has two priorities: (1) Best-in-class experience and (2) cost leadership. Airtel has set these priorities in the context of customer needs and the dynamics of the markets they are serving.

(2) Airtel is seeing exciting opportunities with AI. Their company, Nxtra, is already in the AI data center business. Airtel sees AI as a significant leverage to their future strategies. Randeep comprehensively covered AI use cases to reduce Opex and Capex and improve user experiences and employee learning.

(3) Randeep elaborated on his personal opinion on the Cellular 6G solution. He emphasized that the industry has yet to capture the full potential of 5G. The telecom industry must first double down to get the maximum out of 5G, where the investments have already gone in. 6G should be seen as the evolution to Industrial and campus use cases and not as ubiquitous G.

(4) Randeep believes the trifecta consists of (1) Cloud analytics, (2) Internet-of-Things data accessed by network APIs, and (3) access technologies, which will lead to developing many use cases across entertainment, sports, news, etc, which could be appealing for markets like India. He invited innovators and developers to consider this space for innovation and partner with players like Airtel.