Microsoft doubles down on India, commits to invest $3 billion for cloud and AI expansion
Microsoft's latest move highlights the company's focus on AI-driven tools like Copilot and autonomous AI agents to empower businesses and developers in India.
Nadella emphasised the role of tools like Copilot and autonomous AI agents in transforming productivity and business operations. (Image: Anuj Bhatia/The Indian Express)
Microsoft plans to invest $3 billion in India to expand key cloud and AI capabilities, joining global tech companies in adding critical cloud and AI infrastructure in Southeast Asia. The investment was announced on Tuesday by Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, who earlier this week met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government has been working to attract foreign tech firms.
“I am really excited to announce the single largest expansion we have done in India, investing an additional USD 3 billion to expand our Azure capacity,” Nadella said at an event in Bengaluru.
This marks a significant ramp-up of Microsoft’s expansion in Asia, with artificial intelligence at the heart of its international push at a time when it is facing competition from companies such as Google and OpenAI.
Earlier this week, Microsoft also announced plans to invest about $80 billion in fiscal 2025 to develop data centers for training artificial intelligence models and deploying AI and cloud-based applications.
AI requires enormous computing power, driving demand for data centers that allow tech companies to link thousands of chips together in clusters, enabling access to storage, compute, and analytics services via the internet. Amazon Inc.’s AWS, Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft’s Azure lead the global cloud market.
Microsoft’s investments in India are not just about making AI more accessible to consumers but also about encouraging businesses and developers to use its AI tools, such as Copilot. Microsoft has been offering its Microsoft 365 Copilot AI as an enterprise solution to companies, and the company said adoption is growing rapidly in a market like India.
“The best way to conceptualize Copilot is that it’s the UI for AI. AI needs to interface with us, and that’s why I think this organizing layer of Copilot becomes even more important in a world where many native applications are doing autonomous work,” Nadella explained.
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Microsoft is also doubling down on AI agents, a new kind of autonomous system that can do more than chat. These agents can use software apps, websites, and other online tools, including spreadsheets, online calendars, travel sites, and more. Nadella wants organisations to create their own autonomous AI agents within Copilot Studio, the tech giant’s platform for customising and building these “copilot” assistants. The competition in the AI agent space is intensifying, with Google, OpenAI, and Salesforce all having launched their own “agentic” AI systems.
Anuj Bhatia is a personal technology writer at indianexpress.com who has been covering smartphones, personal computers, gaming, apps, and lifestyle tech actively since 2011. He specialises in writing longer-form feature articles and explainers on trending tech topics. His unique interests encompass delving into vintage tech, retro gaming and composing in-depth narratives on the intersection of history, technology, and popular culture. He covers major international tech conferences and product launches from the world's biggest and most valuable tech brands including Apple, Google and others. At the same time, he also extensively covers indie, home-grown tech startups. Prior to joining The Indian Express in late 2016, he served as a senior tech writer at My Mobile magazine and previously held roles as a reviewer and tech writer at Gizbot. Anuj holds a postgraduate degree from Banaras Hindu University. You can find Anuj on Linkedin.
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