Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to collaborate on technologies the two organisations describe as part of India’s sovereign cloud infrastructure.
According to a joint statement, the agreement is aimed at accelerating research on indigenous cloud platforms that could support India’s data localisation requirements and critical digital services. TCS said the work will focus on AI-enabled platforms for public sector workloads, including applications such as e-Sanjeevani and Dial 112.
C-DAC, which functions under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, called the move a milestone in efforts to strengthen local digital capacity. Magesh Ethirajan, director general of C-DAC, said the partnership would help in “developing and delivering next-generation technologies for sovereign cloud, aligned with the nation’s strategic and digital priorities”.
Girish Ramachandran, president of growth markets at TCS, said the collaboration brings together indigenous research and enterprise expertise to deliver “secure, scalable and future-ready cloud platforms tailored to the needs of a digitally empowered India”.
Both organisations said the initiative is intended to reduce reliance on global hyperscalers by building domestic platforms based on OpenStack and other indigenous technologies.
TCS pointed to its role in national technology programmes, including work on services such as health insurance, defence pensions, passport issuance and stock exchange systems. The company said nearly 70 per cent of Indians use some form of service it supports.
Globally, sovereign cloud projects are gaining traction as governments look to retain control over sensitive data. But experts caution that the concept is difficult to implement, given the scale and cost advantages of established providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
In India too, industry observers say projects led by the National Informatics Centre and C-DAC will require sustained investment, clear standards for security and interoperability, and long-term demand from public sector buyers. Building large-scale capacity also faces hurdles such as power supply, data centre infrastructure and the availability of skilled talent.
Private players have meanwhile been pushing their own India-centric cloud offerings. Airtel’s digital arm, for instance, recently launched a “built-in India” cloud and AI services aimed at telecom customers, highlighting the competition between sovereign initiatives and commercial alternatives in the domestic market.
Homegrown players such as Nxtgen and ESDS have also been pushing sovereign cloud, underscoring the growing number of approaches to localised cloud infrastructure.
