How Microsoft's 'presence' in India has changed post Covid

Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella is bullish about Asia as an investment market for data centers, as the company plans to build more data centers around the world. He is specially betting big on India and China. In an interview to CNBC, Nadella said that Microsoft has witnessed a huge demand in development of new native cloud applications. “Absolutely. We’re very, very bullish about what’s happening in Asia,” Nadella said during the interview.

Talking about India, Microsoft chairman said that the country has seen a “massive growth market” after emerging from the pandemic. “Microsoft’s presence in India was mostly multinational companies operating in India. But for now, it’s completely changed,” he said. "It’s the reverse where these companies who are innovating in India, whether it’s the big large conglomerates, or the new startups, are all using [artificial intelligence] cloud technology to be able to innovate and create services that are obviously popular in India and elsewhere,” he told CNBC. The company says with Indian companies developing on Superapps, the demand for cloud-based infrastructure and apps has gone up.

Microsoft CEO is set to visit India in January next year. This will be Nadella’s first trip to India post the pandemic.

Microsoft to build 'massive' cloud AI computer with NvidiaUS chip designer and computing company Nvidia Corp recently said that it is teaming up with Microsoft Corp to build a "massive" computer to handle intense artificial intelligence computing work in the cloud. The AI computer will operate on Microsoft's Azure cloud, using tens of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs), Nvidia's most powerful H100 and its A100 chips.

Nvidia did not disclose the value of the deal. In addition to selling Microsoft the chips, Nvidia said that it will partner with the software giant to develop AI models. Buck said that Nvidia would also be a customer of Microsoft's AI cloud computer and develop AI applications on it to offer services to customers.