India, US should work on AI norms: Nadella

AI can help boost GDP growth in India. Microsoft will help the country become self-reliant by fostering a skilled AI workforce and empowering every sector and industry to transform with AI, - Satya Nadella, Chairman & CEO, Microsoft

Closing Skill Gaps

• Organisations in India earning $3.86 return for every $ spent on AI projects
• Over 150 organisations already innovating with Azure OpenAI Service
• Azure OpenAI being implemented across agri, aviation, ecommerce, and FMCG

Mumbai: Microsoft chief Satya Nadella on Wednesday pitched for greater cooperation between India and the US on artificial intelligence (AI) regulations and other norms. The Microsoft CEO said that the company will continue to invest more in the country.

The India-born Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the global tech giant said such a partnership can help in equal distribution of economic growth. AI is a powerful new technology that needs to be diffused fast to every corner of the world, Nadella said at an event organised by the company here.

“I think it’s imperative especially for India and the United States to be able to cooperate, what are the norms, what are the regulations even, instead of fracturing them,” Nadella, who is on a two-day visit to the country, said.

He was replying to a question on cooperation between the US and India on AI. He also announced that Microsoft will provide 20 lakh people in India with AI skilling opportunities by 2025. Nadella said AI can help boost GDP growth in the country, and called India as one of the highest growth markets.

Microsoft will help the country become self-reliant by fostering a skilled AI workforce and empowering every sector and industry to transform with AI, he said.

During his address, Nadella announced that Microsoft will help close skills gaps and strengthen India’s ability to thrive in the AI era.

He highlighted how Microsoft Copilot, along with the company’s other AI solutions, is driving measurable productivity gains for people and organisations by helping them complete work faster and with superior quality.

Many organisations in India are already accelerating innovation using Copilot for Microsoft 365 and GitHub Copilot, like Axis Bank, Infosys, HCL Tech, LTIMindtree and others.

Microsoft said that organisations in India are seeing an average $3.86 return for every US dollar spent on AI projects, and more than 150 organisations are already innovating with Azure OpenAI Service across industries such as agriculture, aviation, ecommerce, and fast-moving consumer goods.

Air India, the flag carrier airline, deployed a generative AI virtual agent called AI.g. It has successfully answered over half a million customer queries since its launch in March 2023, and manages over 6,000 queries a day in four languages.

With its fourth data centre region set to go live soon, and data centres in collaboration with Jio, Microsoft boasts more datacenter regions than any other cloud provider in the country.

“We have more Cloud regions in India than any other hyperscaler around the world. We have three regions and the fourth one is coming soon. We are definitely investing more in India to make sure that compute with low latency at scale, including the AI, are available for all of you to be able to take advantage,” said Nadella.