In this post:
- Microsoft intends to spend $3 billion expanding its AI and cloud Azure services in India.
- Microsoft plans to use AI to train 10 million more people nationwide.
- Additionally, Microsoft and SaaSBoomi have signed an AI memorandum of understanding.
Additionally, Microsoft said that it has signed an AI memorandum of understanding with SaaSBoomi, an Indian network for business-to-business entrepreneurs. In addition to raising an additional $1.5 billion in venture capital funding for Indian AI and SaaS businesses, the two will work together to promote entrepreneurship in smaller Indian villages and towns.
In India, Microsoft is already doing well. Notably, the company has over 20 years of experience operating in India. Infosys, Air India, Meesho, Tech Mahindra, Federal Bank, Apollo, MakeMyTrip, HCL Tech, Manipal, Icertis, and InMobi are a few of its customers in India.
Nadella claims that Microsoft 365 Copilot’s “Contract Assist” is being used by IT company Persistent to cut down on the length of discussions by 70%.
India as a market for AI
India is a crucial overseas market for American IT titans. Several of them have invested tens of billions of dollars in developing and scaling their operations in the South Asian market over the last two decades. This is to court enterprises serving hundreds of millions of consumers.
In fact, as Microsoft rapidly develops its products with new AI capabilities, competition among hyperscalers has intensified in recent quarters. In 2023, for example, Amazon declared that it would invest $12.7 billion in its operations in India by 2030.
Furthermore, as one of the biggest and fastest-growing developer marketplaces in the world, India has cemented its presence on the international scene. Microsoft’s GitHub is used by more than 17 million people in India. In recent months, a number of business leaders have traveled to India, including Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, and Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia. The main purpose of their travels has been to draw in developers.
One of the top cloud and artificial intelligence companies in India, Microsoft, already has three data center facilities there. The company says it plans to introduce a fourth next year. The $3 billion investment would go toward creating a scalable AI computer environment to support India’s AI businesses and research community. The move is expected to increase the firm’s popularity in the region.
In 2025, Microsoft projects spending $80 billion on data centers with AI capabilities.
Microsoft plans to invest $80 billion in building data centers that can handle workloads related to artificial intelligence in fiscal 2025.
Additionally, more than half of the projected investments in AI infrastructure will come from the United States, according to Brad Smith, president and vice chair of Microsoft. Interestingly, Microsoft’s fiscal year for 2025 will end in June.
This choice is affected by the Trump-led administration that will take office in the near future. According to Brad Smith, “private capital investments and innovations by American companies of all sizes, from dynamic start-ups to well-established enterprises, have allowed the US to lead the global AI race today.”
Smith also tasked the administration of the incoming president with upholding the nation’s leadership in AI through international promotion of US AI technologies and education. “China is promising to build local AI data centers and is beginning to offer developing countries subsidized access to scarce chips,” he said. The Chinese are astute enough to understand that a nation is likely to remain dependent on China’s AI platform in the future if it standardizes on it.
“The best course of action for the United States is to make sure we win the race ahead, not to whine about the competition,” he continued. We must act swiftly and efficiently to position American AI as a better option in order to achieve this.
In the meanwhile, Microsoft announced $20 billion in capital expenditures and assets purchased under finance leases globally in the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Equipment and property accounted for $14.9 billion. AI services contributed 12 percentage points to Microsoft’s 33% gain in revenue from Azure and other cloud services in the first quarter of the fiscal year.
Nevertheless, economists polled by Visible Alpha predicted that property and equipment purchases will rise by $63.2 billion in fiscal 2025. This would be a 42% rise from the previous year.
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