Airtel Business enters into strategic partnership with IntelliSmart for powering up to 20 million smart meters

by Priya Jadhav 

To offer end-to-end IoT solution for smart metering including Head end system, Cloud and Analytics  

India, December 21, 2023: Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, today, announced that it has formed a strategic partnership to power up to 20 million smart meters with IntelliSmart Infrastructure Private Limited, a leading smart metering and digital solutions provider. This partnership also marks Airtel’s foray into high end applications such as Advance metering infrastructure along with Cloud and Analytics. This is the largest such deal in the smart metering space in the country. It will significantly contribute towards Airtel’s fast-growing IoT deployment across sectors. 

Airtel’s IoT proposition includes its proprietary platform the “Airtel IoT Hub” which will help the utility track and monitor these smart meters with advanced analytics while maintaining extremely high reliability augmented with telco grade security. Housed on Airtel’s own cloud network, the IoT hub will allow enterprise users the capability to connect and manage billions of devices and applications in a highly secure and seamless fashion. 

Ganesh Lakshminarayanan – CEO, Airtel Business (India) said about the venture, “We have further strengthened our market leadership as the largest IoT enabler in the country. IoT is one of the fastest-growing business segments for Airtel Business and, with this deal, we are now strategically positioned to play a pivotal role in driving the Govt. of India’s vision of digitising 250 million conventional meters to smart meters. As we connect the devices across the country on our platform, we will exponentially grow our current IoT market share of 55.4% (as on Q1 FY23-24).” 

Anil Rawal – MD & CEO, Intellismart Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. had this to say, “India’s smart metering programme is one of the significant steps taken by the government to modernise the power distribution sector. Smart meters are critical building blocks for smart grids and a fundamental enabler of the digitalisation efforts of the power system. As we set forward to implement one of India’s largest portfolios of smart meters, we are relying on some of the most able and potent partners in the sector for various solution elements to support the successful deployment of our Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) solutions. We are confident that the on-boarding of Airtel as a strategic partner will be a significant step towards our goal of creating strong associations to strengthen our infrastructure solution with a resilient and secure cloud-hosted cellular communication network.” 

The Government of India has the ambitious vision of replacing 250 million conventional meters with Smart Meters in the next five years as part of the AMI initiative. Airtel IoT aims to play a pivotal role in enabling this vision of the government with its unique capabilities. Power sector digitisation aided by the Government of India's push to usher in transparency and consumer friendly measures in this sector will see innovation such as Smart Meters become commonplace. 

About Airtel: Headquartered in India, Airtel is a global communications solutions provider with over 500 Mn 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 is India’s largest integrated communications solutions provider and the second largest mobile operator in Africa. Airtel’s retail portfolio includes high-speed 4G/5G mobile broadband, Airtel Xstream Fiber that promises speeds up to 1 Gbps with convergence across linear and on-demand entertainment, streaming services spanning music and video, digital payments and financial services. For enterprise customers, Airtel offers a gamut of solutions that includes secure connectivity, cloud and data center services, cyber security, IoT, Ad Tech and cloud-based communication. For more details visit www.airtel.com/  

About IntelliSmart: IntelliSmart Infrastructure Private Limited is India’s leading smart metering and digital solutions provider. It is a joint venture of Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), established with the core purpose of becoming the most preferred digital partner of the utilities. Our organisational culture is built on the core values of Integrity, Respect, Innovation and Sustainability, which influence our everyday endeavours and collective practices. 

IntelliSmart, as a digital solutions provider, aims to create a difference in the power distribution sector with digital interventions while shouldering the responsibility of mass-scale rollout of smart meters under RDSS. With smart meter infrastructure, consumer data management and AI/ML-based analysis, the company seeks to create considerable value for state utilities by enabling them to develop additional revenue sources. Eventually, smart metering will help create a robust, resilient, flexible smart grids that can integrate renewable energy seamlessly to meet India’s growing power demand.