India, Sept. 11 -- India's push to build sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure is moving beyond the question of where data is stored, with control over the underlying cloud, network, operations and technology emerging as a more consequential test of sovereignty.

At the Global Fintech Fest 2026, Airtel's Rahul Vatts, Group CRO and Director-Corporate argued that India's approach to sovereign AI infrastructure needs to cover the entire technology stack rather than treating data residency as the primary measure of control.

The issue is becoming more important as AI moves into banking, healthcare, digital payments, government services and other systems that process sensitive information. For these workloads, keeping data within In...