Microsoft on track to invest $50 billion by end of decade, says Brad Smith

Microsoft president Brad Smith said the firm is on pace to invest $50 billion by 2030 to build AI infrastructure, skills and access across the Global South, with India a key focus

Software giant Microsoft on Wednesday said the company is on track to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to expand artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and capabilities across countries in the Global South.

 

While delivering a keynote address on the theme, ‘Scaling trusted AI for 8 billion+ people,’ Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft, said there is inequality between the Global North and South but AI can assist in closing the gap, allowing the Global South to catch up on economic growth.

 

“We need to bring the infrastructure that the Global South needs — that means data centres, connectivity and electricity. That’s why Satya Nadella announced that Microsoft would be spending $17 billion in India. It’s why we’re on pace to spend $50 billion by the end of the decade bringing AI here.” 

For context, in December last year, the firm had announced that it would invest $17.5 billion between 2026 and 2029 to advance the country’s cloud and AI infrastructure, skilling and other operations. The announcement was in addition to the $3 billion it announced in January last year.

 

Citing data from Microsoft’s AI Diffusion Report, Smith said there exists an uneven adoption of AI between different regions. He said, “The great story of generative AI only began three years and three months ago when GPT was released. We’re in the early years but these early years are not altogether going well. In the second half of 2025, 25 per cent of the working-age population in the Global North was using AI, but it was only 14 per cent in the Global South. That is the new divide, and it’s getting worse, not better.”

 

On the education and skilling side, Smith said there is a need to bring AI skills to the Global South, and India is a focal point for this activity. He reiterated that last year, the company had announced a commitment to impart AI skills to 20 million people by 2028.

 

As part of a new initiative through Microsoft Elevate, Smith added, “We’re launching a new programme to bring skills to 200,000 educators so that they can then bring those skills to their students.”

 

In a blog post, Microsoft outlined a five-point strategy for AI diffusion, which includes building infrastructure, expanding skills and access through schools and nonprofits, strengthening multilingual AI capabilities, supporting local AI innovations and improving measurement systems for policymaking.