Microsoft to invest $3 billion in India on AI, cloud: Satya Nadella

Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella announced an additional $3 billion investment to build cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in India. During his keynote address at the Microsoft AI tour, Nadella revealed the company's plans for the coming years, with a focus on building the Copilot system.

“I am really excited today to announce the single-largest expansion we have ever done in India, by putting 3 billion additional dollars to expand our Asia capacity,” Nadella said during his keynote address at the Microsoft AI tour.

“It’s a combination of the yojanas (plans) that PM Modi has, the India stack, the entrepreneurial energies in this country and the demographics both on the consumer and business side, which is why we're excited to bring core compute capabilities (to India) for the next generation in AI,” Nadella added.

“Infrastructure needs to be the highest priority at every level including at the data centre level,” Nadella said.

Of the 60 Azure regions Microsoft has globally, there are 6 in India, including Central India, South India, West India and India South-Central. This also includes two regions built with Jio – the Jio India West and Jio India Central. Nadella revealed the company's plan to make Copilot the UI for AI and embed it in the workflow system, with extensibility and measurement.

Nadella also talked about India being an AI powerhouse with over 30,594 contributors to genAI projects, just second to the U.S., highlighting the potential of India to become a leader in AI innovation in the coming years with its rich developer community.