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Tech Mahindra & Intel: Crafting the next wave of AI-driven telco transformation

Forbes India caught up with Manish Mangal, Head - Americas Communications Business - Tech Mahindra, to understand how the Intel collaboration is helping clients harness GenAI, advanced computing, and network transformation to solve critical business challenges

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Published: Jun 5, 2025 10:52:00 AM IST

Updated: Jun 5, 2025 11:29:18 AM IST

In an era where telcos are under immense pressure to modernize, optimize, and deliver superior customer experiences, Tech Mahindra and Intel have been quietly powering breakthroughs. Their collaboration is not new, but it has taken on a new relevance as networks become more autonomous and data-driven decisions move to the frontlines. Forbes India caught up with Manish Mangal, Head - Americas Communications Business - Tech Mahindra, to understand how this strong collaboration is helping clients harness GenAI, advanced computing, and network transformation to solve critical business challenges.

Could you share some recent success stories where Tech Mahindra's collaboration with Intel played a pivotal role?

We’ve shared a long-standing relationship with Intel. During this time, our strong strategic alignment and technological synergy has formed the foundation for delivering impactful solutions. The development of Project Indus—an initiative focused on building large language models (LLMs) for Indic languages and the robust infrastructure offered through HybridNXT, both powered by Intel, undoubtedly enhance Tech Mahindra's value proposition and contributed to winning new clients and deepening existing relationships.

More recently, we have been building AI-driven solutions together. One of the flagship solutions, developed in collaboration, is an AI-Powered Digital Twin designed to optimize capex planning for telecom operators. We also teamed up to develop small language model (SLM)-based GenAI Agents, leveraging 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® processors, Intel Extension for PyTorch (IPEX-LLM), and Intel® Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel® AMX), to transform the network ticketing system through advanced automation and intelligent processing.

In all these solutions, Intel plays a pivotal role by powering high-performance AI inferencing through AI-optimized inference run on Intel’s hardware platforms and optimized software libraries. The Intel® Xeon® platform, equipped with built-in AI accelerators, enables deep learning algorithms to run efficiently on CPUs—delivering enterprise-grade AI performance while maintaining cost efficiency. Additionally, the Digital Twin that leverages AI to predict, simulate and optimize Capex investments is helping telcos to accelerate performance.

Intel’s optimized AI libraries, such as NumPy—used during Digital Twin training in this use case—further enhance computational speed and efficiency.

What specific business challenges were your clients facing?

Ticketing inefficiencies and capital planning delays have long hampered telcos. These issues not only degrade end-user experience and operations but also drive up costs and response inconsistencies. GenAI is new on the ground, but it’s rapidly gaining traction due to its potential to streamline such high-impact areas.

Our clients have been grappling with underutilized network capacity, inflated Capex, sub-optimal cost efficiency and slow decision-making. Our AI-powered digital twin solution provides real-time, scenario-based insights, allowing telcos to shift from reactive to proactive planning. Moreover, identifying use cases based on a client’s maturity in Autonomous Network (AN) operations is itself a complex exercise. That’s where our structured approach comes in.

Walk us through your approach to addressing these challenges.

We begin with a deep engagement to identify our customer’s pain points and align solutions with their strategic objectives—be it cost efficiency, agility, or faster time-to-market. At the core of our AI-led solution is a set of intelligent reflection agents that autonomously classify tickets, perform root cause analysis, and recommend resolutions with minimal human input. Integrated with enterprise ITSM platforms, these agents enable seamless support across email, chat, and ticketing systems, significantly improving service responsiveness.

A key enabler of this solution is its ability to perform high-speed AI inference directly on 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® processors—eliminating the need for additional GPUs. Powered by Intel® Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) and optimized using Intel® Extension for PyTorch (IPEX), this architecture delivers real-time ticket processing with exceptional performance-per-watt efficiency.

The 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® Processors serve as the AI backbone of our SLM-based ticketing solution and broader AI workloads. With built-in acceleration for large language model (LLM) workloads, they minimize inference latency and maximize throughput—enabling faster classification and resolution in high-volume IT environments. Building on this foundation, we provide clients with a clearly defined roadmap of automation use cases to elevate Autonomous Network maturity. Our telecom-trained LLMs and geospatial digital twin, powered by Intel Xeon® based architecture—leverage real-time network insights and business intelligence to enable rapid prototyping, cost-effective deployment, and measurable business outcomes.

What were the tangible outcomes of these initiatives?

The pilot results of our Smart Capex solution have been promising. We anticipate a reduction in project planning costs to the extent of 20% and nearly a 30% acceleration in decision-making timelines. While these figures continue to be refined as the solutions are commercialized, the early outcomes point to a significant leap in operational efficiency for telecom operators. By enabling real-time insights and predictive analytics, the solution empowers clients to allocate resources more effectively, streamline rollouts, and de-risk large-scale projects—marking a shift from reactive planning to data-driven strategic execution.

Supporting this performance is the underlying compute infrastructure, where 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® processors play a key role. Their balanced performance and power efficiency help us achieve low-latency inferencing without the need for additional hardware. In many cases, they can also be repurposed for general workloads when not engaged in AI tasks, offering greater flexibility and value in enterprise environments.

While cloud-based compute access continues to grow, on-premise deployments remain vital—especially for organizations handling critical or sensitive data. Many of our clients continue to prioritize data security, and our solution aligns well with these operational preferences while being scalable and future-ready.

How do you envisage the future of your partnership with Intel?

Our partnership with Intel is evolving into a strategic force driving the future of AI-led telecom transformation. Together, we’re building advanced solutions across service lifecycle management, predictive network intelligence, and smart capex planning—empowering telecom operators to reduce costs, improve uptime, and accelerate service delivery. Intel is deeply focused on innovation towards network transformation and AI that aligns seamlessly with our vision of creating cloud-native, programmable, and AI-first networks.

Going forward, our collaboration will expand into areas like edge computing, virtualized infrastructure, and intent-based network management. With the launch of Intel® Xeon® 6 processors—offering 2.4x more RAM capacity and up to 14x better media performance per watt—we’re well positioned to deliver high-performance, energy-efficient solutions at scale. Together, we aim to build a smarter, more connected, and sustainable telecom ecosystem that delivers faster deployments, improved network performance, and stronger ROI for our customers.

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