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Microsoft Agrees to Pump $3 Billion in India into AI and Cloud Infrastructure

Prime Highlights:

Artificial Intelligence in India is still in its adoption stage, but is being used very gradually to come up with intelligent solutions for all types of issues prevailing in nearly every sector from agriculture to health and education to infrastructure.

Considering the scope of AI in future, Microsoft plans to invest $3 billion in India in next two years.

Key Facts:

The investment includes new data centers and AI skill development for 10 million people by 2030.

Microsoft partners with SaaSBoomi to accelerate India’s AI and SaaS ecosystem, impacting 5,000 startups.

Key Background:

In a big push to bolster AI and cloud infrastructure in India, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said during his visit to Bengaluru on January 7, 2025, that the company has promised to pump in $3 billion over the next two years. The push of this will be AI capabilities that are going to expand, upskill the existing workforce, and come up with completely new data centers as the demand to innovate by leveraging AI continues to surge.

As part of a wider commitment, Microsoft said it would prepare 10 million people to become proficient in AI by 2030 through its ADVANTA(I)GE India program. As reported by the company, it covered more than 2.4 million skills on its platform, and is also ahead of time to achieve an earlier milestone put in place to be achieved in 2025. This effort again fits into India AI for India mission and stands as an enabler with regards to skills, innovation, and employment generation.

The MSR also includes the AI Innovation Network, through which Microsoft is seeking to connect research at the edge with practice in business. This will facilitate Microsoft to enable interaction with start-ups and digital-native companies that could help translate research into impactful solutions. This collaboration of Microsoft and SaaSBoomi, the largest SaaS community in India, will further support the growth of AI and SaaS that will be focused on growing more than 5,000 startups and 10,000 entrepreneurs through regional development in tier II cities.

The commitment of Microsoft towards responsible AI practice is concentrating on principles of fairness, transparency, and inclusiveness around the deployment of AI technologies. The company is constructing eco-friendly data centers that will not use a single drop of water to cool them and these centers are pure renewable energy centers that fit perfectly in the mission of

sustainability. Such investments place the country on a path for the speedy transition of being an AI-first nation, which will support all the aspirations of India by the year 2047.