Microsoft to pump $3B to boost AI and cloud in India: CEO Satya Nadella

MicrosoftCEO Satya Nadella on Tuesday unveiled the company’s plans to invest $3 billion in cloud and AI infrastructure in India. 

"I am excited to announce the single largest expansion we have ever done in India by putting $3 billion additional dollars to expand our Azure capacity," Nadella said at the Microsoft AI Tour held in BIEC, Bengaluru. 

“I had the chance to meet Prime Minister Modi yesterday. It was great to listen to all his examples. His vision around how he wants to drive through AI mission..but it’s that combination of Yojana's he has, the India stack, the entrepreneurial energy in the country, and the demographics both on the consumer and business side. That’s why we feel fantastic about bringing core computing capability for the next generation AI,” he added.  

Nadella stated that India is an AI powerhouse with more than 30,594 contributors to GenAI projects.

The American tech giant has also launched the second edition ADVANTA(I)GE India program, with plans to train 10 million people over the next five years with AI skills.

Microsoft launched the first edition of the initiative in 2024 to train two million people in AI skills by 2025. 

“India is rapidly becoming a leader in AI innovation, unlocking new opportunity across the country. The investments in infrastructure and skilling we are announcing today reaffirm our commitment to making India AI-first, and will help ensure people and organisations across the country benefit broadly,” Nadella said. 

According to the CEO, in the future, countries and companies globally will follow a new formula to measure infrastructure, which is tokens per dollar per watt. 

“Infrastructure needs to be the highest priority, and we are innovating in every layer of it. Ten years from now, we will be talking about the correlation between GDP growth, in any community, country, industry, even at a company level, on how efficiently they can drive that equation,” he said. 

Currently, the firm has three data centre regions in the market, with the fourth ready to go live by 2026. 

“AI doesn’t sit on its own – it requires the entire compute stack. We are present in over 60+ regions, and 300+ data centres around the world. In India, we are excited about all the regions we have — Central India, South India, West India. We also have the capacity that we have built with Jio..we have a lot of regional expansion happening,” he added.

Separately, Microsoft and SaaSBoomi have announced an AI MoU to propel India’s AI and SaaS ecosystem. The collaboration aims to impact over 5,000 startups and 10,000 entrepreneurs.

Earlier this week, the company revealed its plans to invest about $80 billion in FY25 in developing data centres to train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications around the world.