Overview
- Satya Nadella announced the company’s largest Asia investment after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, confirming $17.5 billion for 2026–2029 that builds on a $3 billion pledge due by end-2026.
- Microsoft’s India South Central cloud region in Hyderabad is slated to go live in mid-2026 with three availability zones, alongside expansions of existing regions in Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.
- The plan prioritizes sovereignty with new Sovereign Public Cloud and Sovereign Private Cloud offerings and in‑country processing for Microsoft 365 Copilot expected by the end of 2025.
- Microsoft doubled its AI skilling target to 20 million Indians by 2030, reporting 5.6 million trained since January 2025 through its ADVANTA(I)GE India program.
- Azure AI capabilities will be integrated into e‑Shram and the National Career Service to reach more than 310 million informal workers with multilingual tools and smarter job matching.