Microsoft has revealed plans to invest $3 billion in cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure
Microsoft has revealed plans to invest $3 billion in cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and skilling over the next two years, as announced by chief executive Satya Nadella on January 7.
This significant investment will involve the establishment of new datacenters in the country. Currently, Microsoft operates three datacenter regions in India, with the fourth region expected to be operational by 2026.
Nadella also unveiled an enhanced commitment to AI skilling in India, aiming to train 10 million individuals in AI skills over the next five years through the second edition of Microsoft’s ADVANTA(I)GE India program.
This initiative is part of Microsoft’s Global Skills for Social Impact charter, with training sessions conducted in collaboration with government agencies, non-profit organizations, corporations, and local communities.
Microsoft has already successfully trained 2.4 million individuals in AI skills through this program in less than a year, surpassing its initial target of two million people by 2024. Notably, 65 percent of the participants were women, and 74 percent hailed from tier II and tier III cities.
These announcements were made by Nadella during the Bengaluru leg of the Microsoft AI Tour, reflecting the tech giant’s commitment to supporting India in becoming an AI-first nation.
Nadella emphasized India’s growing role in AI innovation, presenting new opportunities across the nation. The investments in infrastructure and skilling reaffirm Microsoft’s dedication to fostering an AI-first environment in India, ensuring widespread benefits for individuals and organizations nationwide.
Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India and South Asia, highlighted that these announcements underscore the company’s confidence in India’s potential and its commitment to equipping the country with the necessary resources and future-ready skills for success in the global marketplace.
“We are committed to utilizing artificial intelligence to unlock endless possibilities in the coming decades and to ensure that communities nationwide have the necessary computing resources to thrive in the AI era,” he stated.
Microsoft has also announced a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with SaaSBoomi, a platform for business-to-business (B2B) startups in India.
Through this partnership, Microsoft and SaaSBoomi aim to provide specialized workshops to upskill over 150,000 startup employees, attract an additional $1.5 billion in venture capital funding for the Indian AI and SaaS ecosystem, and generate more than 200,000 new job opportunities over the next five years.
As part of the MoU, Microsoft will support the growth of over 50 unicorns and soonicorns.
Another significant announcement is the AI Innovation Network, an initiative designed to expedite the transition from research to practical business solutions. Microsoft Research (MSR) Lab intends to establish new partnerships, particularly with digitally native businesses in India.
MSR India has already initiated a collaboration with Physics Wallah on math reasoning and is in discussions with other companies on topics like causal inference, optimizing Indic LLMs, prompt optimization, and reinforcement learning.
These companies will benefit from MSR’s research and expertise, while MSR will have the opportunity to implement its research technologies on a larger scale in collaboration with these companies.
“Our partnership with Microsoft Research is a crucial step towards developing tools that understand and support each student’s learning journey. By combining our knowledge with Microsoft’s advancements in AI and Large Language Models, we aim to make education more accessible, personalized, and impactful,” stated Physics Wallah co-founder Prateek Maheshwari.
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