Zscale, and Airtel have announced the establishment of the AI & Cyber Threat Research Center – India. This multi-stakeholder initiative is designed to enhance national cyber resilience and protect critical infrastructure—including telecommunications, banking, and energy—against increasingly sophisticated digital threats.
The center marks an expansion of Zscaler’s existing research operations in India, transforming them into a collaborative platform involving the private sector, public sector, academia, and government bodies.
Developed under the “In India, For India” philosophy, the initiative aligns with the national goal of Viksit Bharat, aiming to secure India’s rapidly growing digital ecosystem and foster a self-reliant future.
The Evolving Threat Landscape in India
As India undergoes a generational digital transformation, it is building infrastructure at “population scale” rather than “enterprise scale.” While this facilitates massive economic growth, it also significantly expands the national attack surface.
According to data from ThreatLabz India, Zscaler’s research arm, the country faces millions of infiltration attempts every month. Notable recent trends include:
- Nation-State Activity: Cyber espionage campaigns leveraging regional geopolitical tensions to target Indian entities.
- Volume of Attacks: Approximately 1.2 million intrusion attempts originating from 20,000 unique sources, targeting 58 Indian digital entities.
- Zero-Day Exploits: A marked increase in attempts to weaponize previously unknown vulnerabilities across multiple industries.
The center argues that traditional perimeter-based security is no longer sufficient in an environment where attackers use AI to weaponize vulnerabilities at “machine speed.”
Strategic Pillars of the Initiative
The AI & Cyber Threat Research Center – India operates on four core strategic objectives:
| Pillar | Focus Area |
| Protect | Delivering real-time, actionable intelligence to strengthen the resilience of digital-first businesses. |
| Remediate | Partnering directly with government agencies to neutralize active threats and prevent future attacks. |
| Facilitate | Driving the adoption of modern security frameworks, specifically Zero Trust architecture and AI-driven defenses. |
| Build | Strengthening the cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialized certifications to bridge the national skills gap. |
A Collaborative Defense Model
The partnership leverages the unique strengths of both founding members to create a “research-to-response” loop:
- Zscaler’s Role: Zscaler will deploy a specialized threat research team focused on the Indian landscape. This team will utilize the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™—which processes over 500 billion daily transactions—to extract and apply global threat intelligence locally.
- Airtel’s Role: Airtel provides deep visibility into mobile and IoT (Internet of Things) traffic across its vast network. This local operational reach allows for faster identification of suspicious activity and coordinated responses with national stakeholders.
Looking forward, the center plans to invite additional members from India’s critical public and private sectors to further broaden the collaborative effort and harden the nation’s digital defenses.
Gopal Vittal, Executive Vice-Chairman, Bharti Airtel, said:
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. 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.
Jay Chaudhry, CEO, Chairman, and Founder, Zscaler, said:
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. With the AI & Cyber Threat Research Center – India, we will bring the full power of the world’s largest security cloud to protect the nation’s public and private sectors. By combining actionable intelligence from over 500 billion daily transactions with local expertise, we aren’t just building readiness; we are empowering a new generation of defenders to stay ahead of the adversary.