Zscaler and Bharti Airtel announced the establishment of the AI & Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a collaborative platform dedicated to enhancing national cyber resilience amid accelerating AI-driven threats. Targeting critical sectors including telecommunications, banking, energy, and essential digital infrastructure, the center positions itself as a national hub for threat intelligence sharing and innovation. Designed explicitly “In India, For India,” the initiative builds on Zscaler’s established research presence and Airtel’s operational scale to address vulnerabilities at population level.
Addressing Generational Digital Risks
India’s rapid digital transformation deploys systems at unprecedented population scale, vastly expanding the national attack surface while attackers leverage AI for rapid vulnerability probing and exploitation. Zscaler’s ThreatLabz India has tracked millions of infiltration attempts monthly, encompassing nation-state cyber espionage exploiting regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusions originating from 20,000 sources against 58 Indian entities, and surging zero-day exploits across industries.
Such threats underscore the obsolescence of perimeter-based security models, where disruptions to vital services could undermine economic stability. The center responds by prioritizing secure-by-design architectures like Zero Trust to safeguard borderless, AI-enabled environments.
Strategic Pillars for Intelligence and Response
The initiative rests on four core pillars: delivering real-time actionable intelligence for protection; partnering with agencies for attack neutralization and prevention; promoting modern frameworks including AI defenses and Zero Trust; and cultivating cybersecurity talent via specialized certifications to close national skills gaps.
Zscaler contributes a dedicated threat research team harnessing the Zero Trust Exchange platform, which analyzes over 500 billion daily transactions for India-specific insights securing public and private sectors. Airtel provides comprehensive visibility into IoT and mobile traffic patterns, enabling swift suspicious activity identification and ecosystem coordination. Future expansion invites additional critical sector participants to amplify collective defenses.
Leadership Vision for Viksit Bharat Security
Airtel Executive Vice-Chairman Gopal Vittal described the partnership as extending commitments to national digital safeguarding, merging AI capabilities with extensive scale to tackle India-unique challenges and foster confident citizen-enterprise connectivity. Zscaler Chairman and CEO Jay Chaudhry stressed that legacy firewalls and VPNs fail hyper-connected realities, advocating Zero Trust as essential for securing India’s ambitious digital systems through global cloud intelligence and local expertise. The center advances Viksit Bharat goals by empowering a defender generation ahead of adversaries.
