Microsoft-Indian govt collaborate on AI governance, expand scope of technology with...

Mirosoft CEO Satya Nadella’s meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, January 6, resulted in various investments in the field of advanced technology in India. Microsoft has partnered with the Government of India to establish an AI Center of Excellence in which the tech giant will train 5,00,000 Indians from different backgrounds like developers, students, women entrepreneurs, educators, government officials and more to be able to use AI tools by 2026.  

Microsoft and India AI Mission have collaborated for furthering the growth of AI in India. It aims to enable lakhs of Indians to learn AI. As part of this collaboration, the software giant has signed an MoU with the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Apart from establishing an AI Center of Excellence, the tech company will also set up AI productivity labs in 20 National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs)/NIELIT centers in10 states to provide foundational courses in AI learning to 20,000 educators. 

Satya Nadella announced this collaboration during his Microsoft AI tour in New Delhi on Wednesday. During this tour, Nadella also gave details around the company’s three AI platforms that are central to its AI mission- Copilot, Copilot & AI stack, and Copilot Devices and talked about how they can be beneficial for India.  

While he was talking about how India has adapted to AI, he said, “The most exciting part about even coming to India…the diffusion rate, the adoption rates are much faster. There’s not much of a distinction. I can be in Seattle or Palo Alto or I can be in Delhi or Bangalore, it’s not that different in terms of how people are talking about and applying [AI].” 

The Silicon Valley based software technology firm announced other partnerships as well which cut across various sectors like finance, transport, healthcare, education and agriculture. For these it has tied up with these companies: Bajaj Finserv, RailTel, upGrad, Mahindra and Apollo Hospitals.  

With RailTel, Microsoft has made five-year strategic partnership to fully incorporate the Indian railways and public sector with AI, digital and cloud technologies. Recently, Microsoft commissioned an IDC study according to which the usage of AI in India increased from 63 per cent in 2023 to 72 per cent in 2024. 

According to this report commissioned by Microsoft, the adoption rate of AI in India increased from 12% to 72% in 2024. 

These announcements and collaborations came a day after Microsoft revealed plans of investing $3 billion (Rs 257.51 approx.) soon in India to increase major cloud and AI capabilities in the next two years.