Microsoft’s Nadella pledges US$3bil AI investment in India

WASHINGTON: Microsoft Corp plans to spend US$3 billion to expand its cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in India, targeting the world’s most populous country to fuel its revenue growth.

CEO Satya Nadella pledged the investment today at an event in Bangalore, southern India, addressing a crowd of startup founders and executives from tech firms such as Wipro Ltd and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.

He didn’t give a time frame for the outlay.

The country of 1.4 billion people is emerging as an AI battlefront, with CEOs from Nvidia Corp’s Jensen Huang to Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s Lisa Su visiting in the past months.

India, with millions of programmers and home to technology services providers such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and Infosys Ltd, holds one of the world’s largest AI talent pools.

“The diffusion rate of AI in India is exciting,” Nadella said.

Yesterday, Nadella posted a photo online from his meeting with India’s prime minister Narendra Modi.

“Excited to build on our commitment to making India AI-first,” he said on X.

The prime minister responded, saying he is “glad to know about Microsoft’s ambitious expansion and investment plans in India”.

“It was indeed a delight to meet you, @satyanadella! Glad to know about Microsoft’s ambitious expansion and investment plans in India.

“It was also wonderful discussing various aspects of tech, innovation and AI in our meeting,” Modi said.

Under Nadella’s stewardship, Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has been driving to commercialise AI.

Last week, the company announced plans to invest US$80 billion in building data centres, which provide critical infrastructure for businesses to deploy AI systems and tools.

The tech giant has already made major investments in India — Nadella’s native country — employing more than 23,000 people in cities including the technology hubs of Bangalore and Hyderabad.

The CEO said today Microsoft is committed to giving AI training to 10 million people in the country by 2030.