Thrilled about upcoming data centre capacity in India: Microsoft CEO

Earlier on Tuesday, Satya Nadella met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and shortly after that, he announced $17.5 bn investment in the country

Microsoft's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Satya Nadella on Wednesday said he is excited about the upcoming data centre capacity that the company is setting up in India.

 

"We're thrilled about all the data centre capacity that is coming live. We already have stuff in Pune, Chennai, and Mumbai. We are very excited about our India South Central cloud region, based in Hyderabad, that is going to come up next year," Nadella said at a Microsoft event in Delhi.

 

Earlier on Tuesday, Nadella met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed the company's investment plan in the country. Hours after the meeting, he announced a $17.5 billion investment in India by 2030, which will help in building infrastructure and sovereign capabilities for the country's AI-first future.

 

Speaking about his discussion with PM Modi, Nadella said, "We are really excited about the investment we made. I had a chance to meet Prime Minister Modi yesterday (Tuesday) and discussed our excitement about it (investments)."

Microsoft's massive investment in India

 

The $17.5 billion investment in India will be in addition to the $3 billion investment the company announced in January this year. In a blog post, Microsoft said this new investment will be used to build secure, sovereign-ready hyperscale infrastructure that can enable artificial intelligence adoption in India.

 

"At the heart of this effort is the significant progress being made at the India South Central cloud region, based in Hyderabad, that is set to go live in mid-2026. This will be our largest hyperscale region in India, comprising three availability zones — roughly equivalent in size to two Eden Gardens stadiums combined," the company said.

 

"Microsoft’s investment in India focuses on three pillars — scale, skills, and sovereignty — aligned with the Prime Minister’s vision of building a comprehensive ecosystem that drives AI innovation and access at a national scale", the company added in its blog post.  ALSO READ | Microsoft, Google, Amazon bet big on India: What's driving the AI rush?

Tech giants ramp up India investment

 

Nadella's announcement came shortly after another tech giant, Google, announced a $15 billion investment in India. Earlier in October, the company said that it would invest $15 billion between 2026 and 2030 to set up an artificial intelligence hub and a gigawatt-scale data centre in Visakhapatnam.

 

Earlier today, Amazon also announced its plan to invest over $35 billion in India by 2030. Besides business expansion, the company plans to spread this investment into what it calls the three strategic pillars, namely, AI-driven digitisation, export growth and job creation.

 

(with PTI inputs)