Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Satya Nadella made a visit to India on January 2025 as a part of the Microsoft AI (Artificial Intelligence) Tour with an aim for expansion and investment plans to make India a leader in AI.
- He addressed an event in Bengaluru on 7th January and a similar event New Delhi on 8th January.
- Satya Nadella’s last visit to India was in February 2024.
Microsoft Research Lab launches and AI Innovations:
i.IndiaAI, an Independent Business Division (IBD) under the Digital India Corporation, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft to drive the adoption and development of artificial intelligence (AI) in India.
- MoU with India AI to skill 500,000 individuals, including students, educators, developers, and women entrepreneurs, by 2026.
ii.Establish “AI Catalysts,” a Center of Excellence, to promote rural AI innovation in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and equip 100,000 AI innovators and developers through hackathons, community building, and an AI marketplace.
iii.The agreement also includes establishing AI Productivity Labs in 20 National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs)/NIELIT centers across 10 states to train 20,000 educators and empower 100,000 students with foundational AI courses in 200 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs).
iv.Microsoft Research (MSR) Lab had announced an AI Innovation Network to strengthen the AI infrastructure in India. Under the AI Innovation Network, MSR will collaborate with digital users to implement the use of AI for business solutions.
iv.MSR India has collaborated with Physics Wallah on math reasoning and is planning to partner with other Digital Natives on topics such as causal inference, optimizing Indic Large Language Models (LLMs), prompt optimization, and reinforcement learning.
vi.Microsoft also partnered with SaaSBoomi, a community for Business-to-business (B2B) startups in India to boost the growth of India’s AI and Software as a service (SaaS) ecosystem and develop more than 50 unicorns and soonicorns.
- It will help in upskilling over 5,000 startups, create 200,000 jobs, and support India to achieve a trillion-dollar digital economy.
Microsoft announces USD 3 billion investment in India
Microsoft announced a USD 3 billion investment in India over the next two years to enhance AI and cloud infrastructure and skilling initiatives in India.
Moreover, the company also made various collaborations to meet this objective –
i.In healthcare, Apollo Hospitals partnered with Microsoft on AI-driven research in genomics, disease progression, and multimodal AI models that can be used globally and improve patient outcomes.
- Additionally, four AI copilots have been identified to improve clinical, operational, and administrative functions.
ii.For the public sector, RailTel will establish an AI Center of Excellence through which Microsoft will train employees in AI and cloud technologies and co-developing scalable AI solutions.
iii.In financial services, Bajaj Finserv will leverage Microsoft Azure OpenAI services to improve customer experiences, boost productivity, and reduce operational costs.
iv.In manufacturing and agriculture, Mahindra Group will set up an AI Division to involve innovation across its automotive, farming, and finance sectors by making specialized pre-trained models available on the Azure Marketplace.
v.In education, upGrad collaborated with Microsoft to train 1 million learners in foundational and advanced AI skills by 2025 through the use of tools like GitHub Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service.
Other Key Points:
i.Microsoft aims to train 10 million more Indians with essential AI skills by 2030 under its ADVANTA(I)GE INDIA Initiative which is part of Microsoft’s Global Skills for Social Impact charter.
About Microsoft:
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)- Satya Narayana Nadella
Headquarters– Washington, United States of America (USA)
Founders– Bill Gates, Paul Allen
Founded– 1975
