Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella announced today the company's plan to invest USD 3 billion in India over the next two years. This investment will focus on cloud and AI infrastructure, skilling initiatives, and the establishment of new data centers. This investment aims to accelerate AI innovation in India, aligning with the Prime Minister's vision of becoming a developed nation (Viksit Bharat) by 2047 and includes new data centres, skilling programs, and support for startups, the company said.
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"Microsoft will also support the country's long-term competitiveness by training 10 million people over the next five years with AI skills, as part of the second edition of its ADVANTA(I)GE India program," the company said on January 7, 2024.
Satya Nadella remarked, "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 organizations across the country benefit broadly."
Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India and South Asia, added, "In the last 12 months Microsoft has been a copilot to making AI a reality in India, taking it from boardrooms to classrooms, commerce to communities, and finance to farmers. Today’s announcement strengthens our belief in India's potential and our resolve to equip the country with the resources and future-ready skills needed to excel in the global marketplace. We will continue to use AI to unlock possibilities for the next few decades and ensure communities across the country have access to the compute they need to prosper in the AI era."
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Making India AI-first and advancing AI responsibly
Microsoft emphasised its commitment to responsible AI, which is rooted in six core principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. "Microsoft is working to expand broad access to its AI technology that empowers organizations and individuals to develop and use AI in ways that will serve the public good."
Data Center Expansion
Microsoft currently operates three data center regions in India, with a fourth set to go live in 2026. According to the company, this new investment aims to develop a scalable AI computing ecosystem to meet the growing demands of India's rapidly expanding AI start-ups and research community.
AI Skilling Initiatives
Under the ADVANTA(I)GE India program, Microsoft aims to train 10 million people in AI by 2030. It has already surpassed its initial goal of training 2.4 million people, with a majority from Tier 2 and 3 cities and 65 percent of participants being women.
"As the nature of jobs evolves, AI is becoming an essential skill for professionals. Indian professionals are leading the way in learning and skill-building on LinkedIn, spending nearly 50 percent more time on learning per week than the average professional. They have been early adopters of AI, with a 122 percent year-over-year increase in Indian members adding AI skills to their profiles, compared to 71 percent globally," Microsoft reported.
Startup Ecosystem Support
Additionally, Microsoft Research (MSR) Lab announced an AI Innovation Network to deepen its commitment to cultivate the AI ecosystem in India. Under the AI Innovation Network, MSR will build new collaborations, especially with digital natives, to accelerate the transition from research to real, usable business solutions.
Microsoft said MSR India has already initiated a collaboration with Physics Wallah on math reasoning and is in ongoing discussions with other Digital Natives on topics such as causal inference, optimizing Indic LLMs, prompt optimisation, and reinforcement learning.
Prateek Maheshwari, co-founder of Physics Wallah, commented, "At Physics Wallah, we've always believed in the power of technology to transform education. Our collaboration with Microsoft Research is a step towards creating tools that understand and support each student's learning journey. By combining our expertise with Microsoft's advancements in AI and Large Language Models, we're working to make education more accessible, personalized, and impactful. We're working together to help and empower students in meaningful ways."
Microsoft also announced an AI memorandum of understanding (MoU) with SaaSBoomi, a community for B2B startups in India. "This collaboration with SaaSBoomi will accelerate India's AI and SaaS ecosystem, making India a product nation and contributing to its trillion-dollar economy," the company said.
"Over the next five years, Microsoft and SaaSBoomi aim to impact over 5,000 startups and over 10,000 entrepreneurs, upskill more than 150,000 startup employees through focused workshops, foster regional development in 20+ tier 2 cities, create over 200,000 new job opportunities, and help attract an additional USD 1.5 billion in venture capital funding for the Indian AI and SaaS ecosystem," Microsoft added.
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Sustainability Goals
The company also recently announced that its new datacenters will consume zero water for cooling. The new design does not rely on water evaporation, recycling water through a continuous closed-loop system. Microsoft has also secured renewable energy in India through long-term contracts with Amplus and ReNew, contributing to Microsoft's ambition to be carbon-negative by 2030.
Microsoft said, under its agreement with ReNew, approximately USD 15 million of revenue from the contract will be directed towards a community fund to support environmental justice initiatives focusing on women's livelihoods and economic empowerment, energy access, rural electrification, environmental remediation and water quality improvement, and other concerns of communities disproportionately impacted by pollution and climate change.
