Stronger regulations for all facets of technology inevitable: Nadella

Given the pervasiveness of digital technology in our lives, it is inevitable to have stronger regulatory regimes around all facets of technology, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said.

"I think the responsibility of stakeholders like ourselves or businesses like us is to both anticipate and adapt to regulation versus ignore it or expect not to have regulation," he said here at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

"I think even with internet safety and moderation, I think there's a lot of regulation coming out of the European Union which I think are going to set standards," he added.

Nadella said another thing about regulation is that you have to ensure that you have the design process.

It's not about just how do you meet the regulatory standard. It is also about how do you ensure that the entire organisation's process of building technology ensures the regulatory framework around privacy, ethics and internet safety. These are all things that you take into account starting at the design side, he said.

As in technology, many times it is very hard to fix things at scale, so one needs to start by really thinking about regulation at unit of scale of one versus 7 billion people, the Microsoft chief said.