Zscaler and Bharti Airtel partner to establish a national cyber resilience and AI security research initiative focused on telecom, banking, energy, and critical digital infrastructure in India.
New Delhi — Zscaler and Bharti Airtel have launched the AI & Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a joint initiative aimed at strengthening cyber resilience and supporting trusted AI adoption across India’s rapidly expanding digital economy.
The research center, announced on February 20, 2026, is designed as a multi-stakeholder platform bringing together private industry, government agencies, academia, and public sector institutions to address evolving cyber threats targeting India’s digital infrastructure.
The initiative comes as India accelerates large-scale digital transformation across sectors including telecommunications, banking, energy, and public services, increasing both connectivity and exposure to cyber risks. The companies said the center will focus on protecting critical infrastructure, improving cyber response capabilities, and building cybersecurity talent pipelines within India.
Zscaler said India has become a major hub for its technology innovation and cyber research operations, with a significant portion of the company’s research talent based in the country. The new center expands those operations into a broader national collaboration platform under an “In India, For India” framework.
The announcement reflects growing concern among technology and telecom companies over AI-enabled cyber threats, particularly as attackers increasingly use automation and machine learning to identify and exploit vulnerabilities at scale.
According to Zscaler’s ThreatLabz India research division, the company has observed millions of infiltration attempts each month targeting Indian organizations. The company highlighted recent incidents involving nation-state cyber espionage campaigns linked to regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusion attempts originating from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities, and a rise in zero-day exploit attempts across multiple industries.
The companies said the center will operate around four strategic priorities: delivering actionable cyber intelligence, supporting remediation efforts with government agencies, advancing AI-driven and Zero Trust security frameworks, and developing cybersecurity skills through specialized certifications.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine global cyber intelligence capabilities with local network operations and telecom infrastructure expertise. Zscaler said its Zero Trust Exchange platform processes more than 500 billion daily transactions globally, generating threat intelligence data that will support the initiative. Airtel will contribute visibility into mobile and IoT network traffic to help identify suspicious activity and coordinate threat responses more quickly.
The companies also said additional organizations from India’s public and private sectors are expected to join the initiative over time.
“At Airtel, our commitment has been to safeguard our customers and the nation’s digital fabric. This partnership with Zscaler marks a significant extension of this commitment that will combine the power of our AI capabilities and deep scale for cybersecurity research to protect the country’s expanding digital ecosystem,” said Gopal Vittal.
“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. Our research-backed preventive mechanism will also encourage peaceful and secure engagements on digital platforms,” he added.
Jay Chaudhry said India’s population-scale digital infrastructure requires a shift away from traditional perimeter-based security models.
“India is building digital systems at an unmatched population scale. You cannot secure this level of ambition with legacy firewalls and VPNs that were never designed for a hyper-connected world. It demands a modern Zero Trust architecture that is secure-by-design,” Chaudhry said.
India’s cybersecurity sector has seen rising investment from global technology companies as enterprises and government agencies increase spending on cloud security, AI-driven threat detection, and digital infrastructure protection. The launch of the center also aligns with broader efforts to strengthen India’s cyber preparedness while supporting domestic talent development in AI and cybersecurity.
Key Takeaways
• Zscaler and Bharti Airtel launched the AI & Cyber Threat Research Center – India
• The initiative focuses on cyber resilience, Zero Trust security, and trusted AI adoption
• The center will target protection of critical sectors including banking, telecom, and energy
• Zscaler reported millions of monthly infiltration attempts targeting Indian entities
• The partnership aims to expand collaboration between private industry, government, and academia