Microsoft makes US$17.5 billion pledge for AI cloud in India
The country of 1.45 billion people is increasingly drawing the attention of AI power brokers as a market and a source of talent and data
Microsoft pledged to invest US$17.5 billion on artificial intelligence and cloud computing in India over four years, targeting the world’s most populous nation to help fuel its growth.
Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella made the announcement Tuesday after meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, ahead of a tour through the country. Microsoft said the investment will focus on three pillars – scale, skills and sovereignty – which align with Modi’s goal of building a broad ecosystem in the country for AI innovation.
“To support the country’s ambitions, Microsoft is committing US$17.5B – our largest investment ever in Asia – to help build the infrastructure, skills and sovereign capabilities needed for India’s AI first future,” Nadella said in a post on X.
The country of 1.45 billion people is increasingly drawing the attention of AI power brokers as a market and a source of talent and data. Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei visited the country in October, while Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis are both expected in coming months. India, with millions of engineers skilled in machine learning and data science, is also home to some of the world’s largest technology services companies like Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Cognizant Tech Solutions CEO Ravi Kumar Singisetti both posted on X Tuesday that they met with Modi.