Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday as part of his second visit to the country in the year. After the meet with PM Modi, Nadella said that he had an ‘inspiring’ conversation on India’s AI opportunity and commited to spending $17.5 billion help build the required infrastructure and skills in the country.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Nadella wrote, “Thank you, PM @narendramodi ji, for an inspiring conversation on India’s AI opportunity. To support the country’s ambitions, Microsoft is committing US$17.5B—our largest investment ever in Asia—to help build the infrastructure, skills, and sovereign capabilities needed for India’s AI first future. @PMOIndia”
Meanwhile, PM Modi responded to the post, writing, “When it comes to AI, the world is optimistic about India! Had a very productive discussion with Mr. Satya Nadella. Happy to see India being the place where Microsoft will make its largest-ever investment in Asia.The youth of India will harness this opportunity to innovate and leverage the power of AI for a better planet.”
The Microsoft CEO had also commited to training 10 million Indians in AI by 2030. Last month, the tech giant said that it had crossed the halfway mark towards that goal and trained 5.6 million Indians in around 10 months.
The company had then said that it had partnered with the Directorate General of Training (DGT) under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) to offer one year micro degree programmes across 33 National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs) in India.
Microsoft to continue investment in AI data centre infrastructure investment beyond 2026:
In an interaction with Mint earlier this month, Microsoft India President Puneet Chandok confirmed that the company will invest artificial intelligence-ready data centre infrastructure in the country beyond 2026.
“As part of our $3 billion investment plan through this year and the next, our Hyderabad data centre—one of the largest in the region—is set to go live by June 2026. This will add to our data centre hubs in Mumbai, Pune and Chennai, as well as two Jio-Azure regions (with Reliance Industries) in Maharashtra and Gujarat,”Chandok said
“All our data centres are AI-ready, and this is where we’ve invested so far. But, our investments are not episodic—they are structural. We’ll continue to invest more, and we’ll dive deeper into these investments next week.” he added
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