Microsoft started its data centre journey in India in 2015 and has three data centres, one each in Mumbai, Pune, and Chennai.

American tech giant Microsoft is investing in building data centres in India to build solutions in India for the world, its chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said on Thursday.

He was speaking at the Bengaluru chapter of the Future Ready Leadership Summit.

Microsoft started its data centre journey in India in 2015 and has three data centres, one each in Mumbai, Pune, and Chennai. It plans to open a fourth in Hyderabad which is expected to be operational by 2025. The strategic investment is aligned with Microsoft’s commitment to help customers thrive in a cloud and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled digital economy.

“India today is a mainstream market for us… we build and design with Indian customers and partners, front and centre,” Nadella said.

AI will be one of the top technology trends which will impact our lives for the next few years to come, he said. “This is similar to what cloud and mobile was during 2007-08.”

Customer demand for cloud as a platform for digital transformation is increasing. According to IDC, Microsoft data centre regions in India contributed $9.5 billion in revenue to the economy between 2016 and 2020. Beyond GDP impact, the IDC report estimated 1.5 million jobs were added to the economy, including 169,000 new skilled IT jobs.

While interacting with developers and technology leaders, Nadella reinforced the digital imperative for every organisation and how Microsoft Cloud creates opportunity for every developer to solve for India and make for the world. He also called out the 100,000 Cloud skills and certifications earned by the community in December 2022 on Microsoft Cloud.

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“Ultimately, for me, it is about being able to put the power of all this technology into the hands of other technologists and developers, so they can go on to create more technology that has a real impact in the world, across every small business, large business, non-profit and public sector,” Nadella said. “At the core, we are a company that gets up every morning to build better tools for developers so they can build more technology.”

Sharing his vision for a tech-enabled India, he highlighted how the cloud will be foundational to scaling India’s digital journey and how Microsoft is innovating across the tech stack to support the country’s ecosystem of developers, startups and companies across every industry.

Nadella stressed on the importance of addressing cybersecurity concerns, which would rapidly increase along with digitalisation. “We need to adopt a zero-trust approach,” he said.

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Microsoft on Thursday also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to fuel the growth of space technology startups in India. The MoU seeks to empower space tech startups with technology tools and platforms, go-to-market support, and mentoring to help them scale up and become enterprise ready. The startups identified by Isro will be onboarded onto the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, which supports startups at every stage from idea to unicorn.

https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/microsoft-bets-on-indian-data-centres-to-build-in-india-for-the-world/2937965/