Microsoft opens cloud region in Hyderabad, 4th in the country
What's the story
Microsoft has launched its new cloud region in India, located in Hyderabad. The new facility is part of the company's $20.5 billion investment commitment to expand its cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the country. With this launch, Microsoft now has four cloud regions in India, joining existing ones in Pune, Chennai, and Mumbai.
Capacity expansion
India's data center capacity to grow by 2035
Microsoft India and South Asia President Puneet Chandok highlighted that while India generates 20% of the world's data, it only has 3% of the global data center capacity.
He expects India's capacity to increase from around 2GW to between 12-14GW by 2035.
This expansion is crucial as enterprises and governments transition from AI experimentation to large-scale deployment.
Skill development
Microsoft aims to skill 20M Indians in AI by 2030
Chandok emphasized the need for resilient and trusted infrastructure within India to scale AI.
He likened this infrastructure build-out to India's Green Revolution, where AI models are the "new seed" and compute infrastructure is akin to irrigation canals.
Microsoft also plans to skill 20 million Indians in AI by 2030, including two million teachers.
AI adoption
AI adoption in India
Chandok said that 92% of knowledge workers in India are using AI, compared to 75% globally.
He also noted a 15-fold increase in agent usage in Microsoft 365.
"The model is not your moat. Your context is," he said, stressing the importance of keeping enterprise data within a trusted infrastructure.