The company's CEO Vinod Kumar said that telecommunications companies have a "right to play" in the cloud market, because they can offer connectivity, scalability and security, as well as the "hard assets" of data centres and network. However, he warned that there are still significant risks around cloud profitability.

"Cloud is a space where everybody is converging," said Kumar. "You have the IT guys making their services available on a cloud model, you have systems integrators coming in, and you have the telcos coming in. Over time we'll have to see how the economics shape up, and how the tussle between how the profitability pie gets shared between all these players."

John Landau, senior vice president of technology and services evolution at Tata, said that when the company wins customers with its cloud offering, this is normally because of the trust that has built up around the Tata brand in India. However, as the cloud market becomes more crowded, greater financial security might come from operating a wholesale model.

"We're an arms merchant," he said. "If Amazon has five choices to get into India, why would we not bid competitively to be one of those five, and take the money? Our shareholders would probably shoot us if we didn't because Amazon would still be in India."

Meanwhile, with regard to offering its cloud services in more developed markets, the company it taking a cautious approach. Although it already owns data centres in the UK and US, it is waiting until the demand for portability from its existing customers grows to a significant level before rolling out services.