Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it will invest US $3 billion in India in cloud and AI infrastructure over the next two years, including new data centres and skills development, as part of a broad initiative to develop the country's AI ecosystem.
Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella revealed the plan onstage at the Microsoft AI Tour in Bengaluru. He didn’t specify how many new data centres Microsoft intends to build in India, but noted that the company already has three data centre regions in the country, with a fourth planned to go live in 2026.
Microsoft also said it has secured renewable energy to power its data centres in India via long-term contracts with Amplus and ReNew. As part of the agreement with ReNew, around US$15 million of revenue from the contract will go to 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,” Microsoft said.
The announcement comes last week's blog post from Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith that said the company is on track to invest approximately $80 billion globally in AI-enabled data centres in FY 2025, although over half of that amount will be invested in the US.
Beyond the data centres themselves, Microsoft also aims to develop a scalable AI computing ecosystem in India to meet growing demand from the country’s rapidly expanding AI start-ups and research community.
For example, Microsoft unveiled a new AI upskilling initiative that builds on Microsoft’s ADVANTA(I)GE India initiative launched last year with the goal of training 2 million people in AI skills by 2025. With that initiative having already beat that target with 2.4 million individuals trained in under a year (65% of them women), Microsoft said it has set a new target of upskilling 10 million additional people with AI skills by 2030.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Research (MSR) Lab kicked off a new initiaitive to develop India’s AI ecosystem. Under the “AI Innovation Network”, MSR will collaborate with digital startups to develop AI research into usable business solutions.
Microsoft also signed an MoU with B2B startup community SaaSBoomi to accelerate the growth of India’s AI and SaaS ecosystem over the next five years, especially in Tier II cities. Microsoft and SaaSBoomi said the collaboration will benefit over 5,000 startups and over 10,000 entrepreneurs. It will also enable upskilling for over 150,000 startup employees, create over 200,000 new job opportunities, and help attract an additional US$1.5 billion in venture capital funding for India’s AI and SaaS ecosystem, Microsoft said.
“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,” said Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India and South Asia, “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.”
