Axiata taps AWS for cloud-powered innovation

At AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company announced that Axiata Group Berhad (Axiata), a leading Asian telco and digital group headquartered in Malaysia, has selected AWS as its primary cloud provider. With AWS, Axiata is accelerating its digital transformation across its operating companies to better serve 174 million customers in the Southeast Asia and South Asia regions.

Axiata will migrate a large array of its mission-critical applications, including more than 650 services across customer service, enterprise resource planning, and human resources, to AWS by the end of 2024. In addition, the company will move 80 machine learning (ML) applications to the world’s leading cloud. Axiata will use AWS technologies, including data analytics, generative artificial intelligence (generative AI), and ML, to inform data-driven business decisions, tailor offerings to new markets, and develop new services to meet evolving customer needs across the telecommunications, banking, and payments industries. Axiata’s operating companies will also leverage AWS’s security features, like identity and access management (IAM) and encryption, to deliver the highest levels of security and privacy across its telecom network.

“AWS has been a key collaborator in our digital transformation journey, accelerating our time to market for new services, enabling us to better serve our 174 million customers across Asia,” said Anthony Rodrigo, group chief information officer at Axiata. “Customers expect effortless mobile transactions, and by tapping into AWS’s generative AI and machine learning capabilities, we can deliver on the needs of customers rapidly, securely, and more cost effectively. The cloud gives us the agility to build new business models that will differentiate Axiata now and into the future. We look forward to expanding our collaboration with AWS further.”

Using Amazon Bedrock, a service that makes multiple foundation models available via an API, Axiata is building experimental generative AI applications to improve productivity across all business lines, including customer service, finance, human resources, and sales. Axiata uses Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service to build, train, and deploy ML models, to optimize business processes and networks. For example, Axiata’s Sri Lanka operating company Dialog Axiata transformed its analytics and ML infrastructure into an internal AI factory system that enables the company to apply ML and AI technologies across its core operations using Amazon SageMaker. The AI factory allows Dialog Axiata to efficiently use analytics and ML to develop and deploy churn prediction and next best-offer systems to drive customer engagement.

XL Axiata, an Indonesia-based mobile telco operator, is using Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), a managed service, which gives companies the flexibility to start, run, and scale Kubernetes in the cloud, to launch and run its mobile applications without needing to manage underlying infrastructure. Today, 27 million Indonesian customers on XL Axiata’s MyXL and AXISnet mobile applications can seamlessly access their accounts while enjoying the latest rewards and personalized offers. Running on AWS, XL Axiata has expanded the availability of its services and tripled its monthly active users in two years. The company has also scaled its applications nearly twice as fast on AWS, compared to using on-premises infrastructure.

Axiata is embracing cloud technology to drive digital transformation and innovate new customer offerings to remain competitive. To provide market-ready solutions that are flexible, scalable, and user friendly, AWS and Axiata Digital Labs (ADL) collaborated to deliver the Axonect product suite. The offering is an open standards–based toolbox that helps telcos and enterprises use AWS infrastructure to modernize traditional business-support systems, drive innovation, and create digital customer experiences. With AWS, ADL can offer its customers a range of systems and tools, including its Digital Business Support System that offers 5G and cloud-optimized platforms for business-to-business and business-to-consumer interactions.

“Axiata Group’s digital transformation across Asia is an inspiring example of how telcos can accelerate their transformation to technology companies that help meet rising customer demand for digital services,” said Conor McNamara, vice president at AWS ASEAN. “With AWS, Axiata can diversify and modernize their business in the cloud, while shaping the future of customer service with generative AI. We are excited to collaborate with Axiata Group and support their vision to be the Next-Generation Digital Champion.”

CT Bureau