PTI
Mumbai: Microsoft will invest $3 billion (about Rs 25,700 crore) to expand its cloud computing and artificial intelligence capabilities in India, its chief executive officer Satya Nadella said on Tuesday.
The tech giant will also train 10 million people in AI skills in India by 2030, Nadella said, addressing a conference attended by startup founders and executives from technology firms here.
Nadella is the latest in the list of tech tycoons to have visited India – the nation of 1.4 billion people that is emerging as an AI battlefront.
Chip maker Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, AMD’s Lia Su and Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun had in recent months visited India, home to millions of programmers and technology services providers like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro.
Nadella said the $3 billion investment in India would be the “single-largest expansion” done in the country. “The diffusion rate of AI in India is exciting.”
He, however, did not give a time frame for the spending.
Microsoft provides its cloud computing services under the Azure brand name. It has over 60 Azure regions comprising more than 300 data centres.
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In India, we are excited about all the regions that we have. We have Central India, South India, West India, and South Central India. We also have the capacities that we built up with Jio. We have a lot of regional expansion happening,” Nadella said.
When Nadella last visited India in February 2024, he announced the company would provide 2 million people in the country with AI skilling opportunities by 2025, focused on training individuals in smaller cities and rural areas.
The Microsoft Chairman also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday in New Delhi.
Nadella said the Prime Minister shared his vision on the artificial intelligence mission, India stack, and entrepreneurial aspirations in the country, among others.
He had posted a picture of the meeting on X, formerly Twitter, and said, “Excited to build on our commitment to making India AI-first”.
Prime Minister Modi responded, saying he is “glad to know about Microsoft’s ambitious expansion and investment plans in India”.
Nadella said that after a few years, there will be discussion around correlation between GDP growth in any country and even at company level for their own growth on efficiency levels derived between energy consumed per token per dollar.
“We are building world-class AI infrastructure. This is golden for systems when it comes to innovation,” Nadella said.
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