Overview
- Satya Nadella announced the commitment after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, confirming $17.5 billion over 2026–2029 and noting it builds on a $3 billion pledge made earlier this year.
- The plan includes a new India South Central cloud region in Hyderabad slated to go live in mid‑2026 and continued expansion of existing regions in Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.
- Microsoft will offer Microsoft 365 Copilot with in‑country data processing by the end of 2025 and is introducing sovereign public and private cloud options to meet regulatory and data‑residency needs.
- Partnerships with the Ministry of Labour and Employment will add AI capabilities to e‑Shram and the National Career Service, bringing multilingual access, AI job matching and analytics to services reaching over 310 million informal workers.
- Skilling efforts have trained 5.6 million people since January 2025, and Microsoft has doubled its goal to equip 20 million Indians with essential AI skills by 2030.